Genome complexity in embryology: neural crest cells (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 06, 2015, 21:53 (3271 days ago) @ dhw


> "'Neural crest cells never had their potential restricted at all," LaBonne said. "We believe a small population of early stem cells were set aside, so that when the time came, their immense developmental potential could be unleashed to create new features characteristic of vertebrates."
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> I like the sound of these. Cells of unlimited potential that can fit into new combinations, fulfilling new functions....I don't know why you must insist that your God is not clever enough to invent a mechanism that can work things out for itself.-Because a fully autonomous mechanism might take off in tangents that outside the bounds of what God wants. If God implanted guidance paths, then we are back to semiautonomous.-> dhw: Well, I "must insist" that an autonomous inventive mechanism that enables cells to create new combinations and functions remains a reasonable proposition. My little hypothesis extends a warm welcome to neural crest cells.-What is really amazing is one little fertilized egg makes a human with 10 trillion well-organized cells, with each cell type doing something different than the others, all through embryologic development.