Birth is called the miracle of life. New babys are adored and coddled whether they be human or puppies or kittens. There is always that lurking chance that something went wrong and what emerges could be a Freak of Nature. Let's be honest, if every baby born was normal then life would be pretty boring. Freaks of Nature spice things up. Mark Blumberg seeks to explain the process of producing these Freaks of Nature in his book Freaks of Nature. In the book, Blumberg tries to set the record straight on the so-called Freaks of Nature. In general most people assume abnormal births are due to bad genetics, or a genetic "error" of some kind. Whle those exist and can explain some birth defects, they do not explain all. Blumberg focuses on the developmental "errors" that affect a developing baby. The environment withing the womb has significant impact on a fetus as it develops and slight variations can lead to drastic results. The tempurature is one such factor. Snakes can develop two heads in cases where there was too much heat.
While the book covers a lot of different freaks, from siamese twins to missing limbs, the most fascinating thing for me was the discussion of facial development. What most people do not know is that the human nose begins development on the forehead. Below the nose the eye begins to develop. The eye must split to form two eyes by a certain point or the nose can not move down to its proper place. If the eyes split too early, you can end up with two heads. If it's too late, you end up a cyclops (with a proboscus on the forehead). So contrary to the movies, a cyclops should not have a nose. It was interesing to learn that timing is essential and it is amazing how often things come out right considering all the things that could go wrong.
Blumberg does a decent job of making Freaks of Nature readable for the lay person. He also provides some decent pictures and illustrations. These are important to better illustrate the areas he covers. While I enjoyed the book, I did struggle to finish it. It did not capture my attention as much as I had expected. I still found it to be a enjoyable book. It could be helped by even more pictures and illustrations. It seemed most were stock and I think Blumberg could have endeavored to create some of his own. I thinks its worth reading for people interested in science and that's about it. It might make a good companion volume for a Biology/Zooloogy class.
