Life Unfolding: How the Human Body Creates Itself Illustrated Edition

"The history of a man for the first nine months preceding his birth would probably be far more interesting than all the three score and ten years that follow it" - Samuel Taylor Coolidge. The book starts with this quote which is an excellent preamble to the contents. How a fertilized egg can transform itself through cell division into a human body with all its cell diversity is, for the vast majority of us, mind blowing. Life unfolding starts with the embryo an discusses aspects of what we know about how life develops. It can be hard to follow at times as the names of proteins and tissue regions are not easily memorized but the contents are fascinating. Life unfolding takes us through aspects of biological development looking at areas involved in conception all the way up until death. The topics are chosen to give us a sense of what people are focused on as well as how biological science is done.The book is split into 3 core parts. The first is titled First Sketch. The author starts at the beginning and looks at the journey of a fertilized egg. It discusses the potential mechanical mechanisms that a cell employs to divide effectively. The author communicated the initial conditions well so that the complexity of processes like cell division become more understandable to us. By this I mean people don't usually think about why cell division in and of itself should be difficult ones the nucleus has divided but by describing the blindness of molecules to the geometry of the cell, the process of self organization is quickly realized to be highly non-trivial. The author discusses how the embryo moves to attach itself to the mother, how it uses mechanical principles to orient itself and start to create structure from symmetry. The author describes how the feedback mechanisms used by proteins leads to complex and differentiating behavior from uniform cell samples. The author discusses how a spherical set of cells can start to create the conditions of a body formation. One starts to get the sense of how uniformity can turn into heterogeneous behavior all through locally generated feedback mechanisms.In the second section, Adding Details, the author moves on to discuss how the true complexity of our bodies starts to evolve. We get a sense of how stem cells start to branch depending on the feedback signals in the local area of the cells that leads to organ formation. We learn how protein concentrations affect gene activation which feedback to protein concentration and how all of these can combine to create bias in cellular movement that helps organize new tissues and organs. The author discusses the kidneys at length and how arms and legs are created can form using feedback effects. The author also discusses the differences between the chromosomes of the sexes, namely the XY and XX pairs, and how physiology is a function of certain gene representations and feedback effects due to how XY and XX behave differently and how inhibited Y chromosomes can evolve to look like women in all things but reproductive ability.In the final core section, Refinement, the author discusses later stage life. In this section we move past the quote the book starts with and start to focus on internal evolution, the author discusses the nervous system and articulates both the incredible complexity of our neural networks as well as how feedback effects between neurons guides the way connections are formed. The author discusses the Vitruvian man and how the proportions of the body can be thrown off due to certain cellular process malfunctions. The author ends by noting how our body is constantly replenishing our cells and then dives into how the regeneration process is propagated.Life unfolding gives the reader a sense of how symmetry is broken in cellular life. It describes aspects of the incredible complexity of our cellular life by focusing on stylized examples that are relatively simple dynamical systems that can lead to unintuitive complex outcomes. It is extremely interesting but at times overwhelming. There are a multitude of genes and proteins that the reader will be unfamiliar with and the cross referencing means the reader will have to flip back to earlier sections quite often to remind themselves of details. The fact that the author can communicate aspects of how cell complexity arises to the novice is a remarkable feat and I encourage people to read this book.

This book does three things well.1. It helps people understand basic biochemistry and cell signaling within the context of human development.2. It explains biology deeper than 9th grade levels metaphors do. (Chapter 1 alone destroys the blueprint/DNA metaphor very artfully)3. It answers how humans are put together giving details every step of the way.The book also gives many examples of physiological processes and explains how cells interact with each other and their environment. It's easy to read and the diagrams are easy to understand.

In this time when every elected official believes he has the power to coerce every potential parent what is allowed for them to do (also every ecclesiastic authority) or not do and when their statements reveal they haven't a clue what the events of reproduction are, this book is able to tell them what they must know to be legitimately involved. I do think some of them still believe in the stork! The author has been careful not to use sentences too long or words too big!

Every once in awhile in route through my reading, I'll come across a book that seems to enlighten my understanding of existence in a powerful way. This is one of those books. The book is a very readable survey how life through complex yet at times simple chemical interactions becomes the sentient beings we are. It's amazing how much we understand of this process and how much more we have to learn.

Reading science books is a lifelong pastime for me, and Life Unfolding is definitely my favorite EVER. Each page reveals an amazing event in the development of a fetus, to the extent that I can't wait to read the next page and have my mind blown again. Some of the passages get a little complex and the author generally has simple diagrams to help, though I feel a few more would be appropriate. Still my favorite science book ever. A must read.

The reader should have at least a high school biology class to be able to comprehend the principles in this book. However, an intelligent reader these days can make progress in understanding if he/she is diligent and resourceful. The book is well worth the time someone can devote to understanding his/her world and the good science that is explained in this book. We are a lot closer to understanding life and how it creates itself than most people realize, if only they would prepare to comprehend basic science from the bottom up. I am still reading it and finding new understanding as I go along. For me, the disclosures of how the body increases and develops is a mystery solved and one I was always longing to know!

Wow. I loved this book. A real "a ha!" moment doesn't come by every day-- one where you say, "wow. I totally get it. That's so NEAT!!", but I had a number of them reading this book, and it was kind of euphoric. I'm so glad Mr Davies undertook to explain this complex yet un-blueprinted undertaking at this level. The book is detailed enough to be mind-blowing and enlightning, but accessible enough to not require a professor, paid university credits, and a thick textbook. This wasn't an easy balance to write, I'm sure, but Davies did an excellent job on a very worthwhile read. My daughter gets it next.

An excellent, accessible and informative account of human development. It practically shows why any genetic-determinist view of how we come to be is wrong, given the dynamic interactions among cells during development. A must-read for anyone interested in genetics and development.

This is a book about morphology - the missing link in the story of how our genes make us. The story of evolution that is glibly trotted out to the public is unsatisfactory because it assumes magical steps that get no explanation. Richard Dawkins and others talk of 'genes for this and that' without in any way explaining how those genes actually build structures as complex as the human body. Geneticists tell us that genes code for proteins; hardy an explanation of how we came into being. This book, which is readable by all, gives quite detailed explanations of how signalling proteins (transcription factors) create cascades of gene activity, while other proteins control the way cells slide over one another or stick together, and yet others (morphogens) set up chemical gradients that control the positioning and proliferation of cells. Stunningly complex and intricate, these explanations, even if you don't follow them all in detail, show how it is perfectly possible in principle to understand the 'magic', without limit, even though we are far from a full detailed explanation at present. I first discovered this 'missing link' when I read 'The Triumph of the Embryo' by Lewis Wolpert, another very good book on the subject which also appeared as a beautifully ilustrated television documentary.

Jamie A. Davies has done an excellent job in explaining some of the mysteries of how a human life forms and develops through the gestation period and even beyond birth. An unfolding journey that begins as a single cell dividing itself over and over, with each layer of replication adding enough complexity and difference to define and guide the following stages. Cells, through variances in location to one another, the strength of signalling proteins and mechanical forces, and the influences of the environment around it, adapt and change via switching off/on particular genes to become the varying diverse biological components of a living being – all without having to have some kind of “blue-print” of “fore-knowledge” of the final structure that they are forming. As Davies puts it, at the end of an early stage in an embryo’s development,“It has pulled itself up by its own bootstraps, first using simple geometrical tricks to create differences where there were none, and then using these new differences between cell types as a source of information to create yet more differences, more information, and more organisation. All of this was accomplished by relatively simple mechanisms that obey simple, local rules” (p.64, Hardback edition)How a body builds itself, as explained by Davies in the introduction and throughout, is not analogous to how we construct a car or a bridge. There is no foreman or workers following and design. The body builds itself via the “simple” responses of individual cells to their environment with no comprehension of the “grand scheme of things” beyond their decisions.This may seem illogical to us, “how can cells, that know nothing of the final picture, go in to form such a complex working biological marvel?” Davies does a good and persuasive job of putting his case across, using his own experience in the field of cellular and anatomical development, and by citing years of research that has (and continues) to explore this exiting field.Seeing how cells “pull off” this amazing feat doesn’t in anyway diminish the wonder of “the miracle of birth” – in many ways, after reading this, that wonder has intensified. How life holds itself together, how this community of an organism that I call my body maintains and extends itself is extraordinary. This is the kind of book, that once you’ve read a chapter, you’ll find yourself wondering at the movements of your hand and contemplating your ability to see those movements. Life really is fascinating.That doesn’t mean that this is an easy book to read. Davies has does a fine job in simplifying all this, and there are many areas that haven’t been touched on and developmental journeys that been side-tracked for the sake of brevity. But bodies are not simple things, and to grapple with things that are complex will require the reader being prepared to stretch their thinking. For those who are familiar with this area, then this book will provide a good condensed view of the basic principles (and providing further works/research papers to explore). For those new to all of this – and I still think of myself in this boat – then you might find yourself getting a little bit lost with new terminology, membrane names and protein labels (although Sonic Hedgehog is pretty easy to remember). So for the newbies in this field, be prepared to take your time, and be willing to sometimes read back before reading forward.Overall, I found this book a fascinating, compelling and well written treatment of how we come to be.It’s not the only book I’ve read on this topic, and I certainly wouldn’t say it’s the only book you need to read. So, if you’re interested, I’d also recommend the following works: The Epigenetics Revolution by Nessa Carey, The Music of Life by Denis Noble, and, for a more philosophical treatment of human biological and evolutionary development, Aping Mankind by Raymond Tallis.

This is one of those wonderful science books for the general reader which manages to cover a fascinating subject clearly without condescension. To this end, there is quite a lot of technical information in the text and diagrams as the author explains how the initial single fertilised egg cell divides and multiplies and binds with different proteins to create the foetus in all its complexity. But don't be put off by this, the explanations are lucid and don't require specialist knowledge to understand. The details of the process are necessary to show the limitations of the journalistic idea of a 'gene for X'.Equally clear is the way that the evolution of more complex animals (including ourselves) have built upon the mechanisms of the simpler animals that preceded them.That this is an area where science, by way of ingenious research and experimentation, is making rapid progress is shown as the author identifies the areas where mechanisms are still in the process of being worked out. It is also an area with many potential medical uses in the future. Utterly fascinating.

Saw Prof Davies give a talk at a conference and loved it - he plugged this book there so I felt I had to buy it, and very glad I did! Such a well written book, Prof Davies explains the fascinating concept of life unfolding from the single cell that we once all were to the complex human systems we have become, and how things can go wrong in this process. Would recommend for all readers - I have a UG degree in Biochemistry so am more familiar with some of the concepts but still found it beautiful to read (only wish I had read it during my degree!). Have now passed on to my mum as I think it is a great book for anyone of any level with an interest in human development (and in my opinion, this should be everyone! we are fascinating!).

An immensely enjoyable read from our first cell through to the first beating of a heart and then to learn about our three pairs of kidneys.Professor Davies' use of humour was well-measured especially with so many references to the Sonic Hedgehog protein. Good to know that workers in the field of cell biology also have an essential sense of humour. Highly recommended especially for those curious to learn how they were built from an egg 0.1 mm in diameter.