Your Inner FIsh
Dispute: All organisms with vision have similar eyes and similar vision genes.
All organisms with vision do not have similar eyes. There are many groups that have similar eyes, but not every single organism have similar eyes. Since most of the picture processing happens in the brain, the function of the eye is just to capture light to carry to the brain for processing of an image. (149) Human’s camera-like eyes are similar and common to every creature with a skull. However many different types of eyes exist in other animal groups. Other eyes range from small, simple patches of cells that are specialized in capturing light to even more complicated versions of a human eyes with many layers, like eyes of flies. (150) There are basically two different types of animal eyes however; one seen in invertebrates and one in vertebrates. The main idea being that there are two different ways of increasing the surface area in eye tissue that gathers light. Invertebrates do this by having numerous folds in the eye tissue. However vertebrates expand the surface area of the eye tissue by having lots of tiny projections extending from the tissue. (156) However, all organisms do indeed share similar vision genes. Eyes may look the same, but the genetics that make them are the same. (157)
Dispute: There are few genes dedicated to olfactory sense and they are similar in all organisms capable of detecting smell.
A major breakthrough in understanding our sense of smell occurred in 1991 when Richard Axel and Linda Buck discovered the large family of genes that give us our sense of smell. (143) They discovered that there are a huge number of genes dedicated to olfactory sense. They also discovered that only three percent of our entire genome is dedicated to genes for detecting and processing different odors. For this discovery, Axel and Buck received and shared the Nobel Prize in 2004. (144)
Dispute: Humans and sharks both have four gills arches as embryos, but the germ layers
All organisms with vision do not have similar eyes. There are many groups that have similar eyes, but not every single organism have similar eyes. Since most of the picture processing happens in the brain, the function of the eye is just to capture light to carry to the brain for processing of an image. (149) Human’s camera-like eyes are similar and common to every creature with a skull. However many different types of eyes exist in other animal groups. Other eyes range from small, simple patches of cells that are specialized in capturing light to even more complicated versions of a human eyes with many layers, like eyes of flies. (150) There are basically two different types of animal eyes however; one seen in invertebrates and one in vertebrates. The main idea being that there are two different ways of increasing the surface area in eye tissue that gathers light. Invertebrates do this by having numerous folds in the eye tissue. However vertebrates expand the surface area of the eye tissue by having lots of tiny projections extending from the tissue. (156) However, all organisms do indeed share similar vision genes. Eyes may look the same, but the genetics that make them are the same. (157)
Dispute: There are few genes dedicated to olfactory sense and they are similar in all organisms capable of detecting smell.
A major breakthrough in understanding our sense of smell occurred in 1991 when Richard Axel and Linda Buck discovered the large family of genes that give us our sense of smell. (143) They discovered that there are a huge number of genes dedicated to olfactory sense. They also discovered that only three percent of our entire genome is dedicated to genes for detecting and processing different odors. For this discovery, Axel and Buck received and shared the Nobel Prize in 2004. (144)
Dispute: Humans and sharks both have four gills arches as embryos, but the germ layers