Understanding exactly how this software moves an organism from zygote to adulthood is another matter. To become hands and fingers swirled with a print unique in all the world. To become a mind that not only controls basic functions like breath and heartbeat, but one that burns with the electricity of reason and imagination. Embryologists, developmental biologists, fetal pathologists and others have worked for years to sketch in the outlines of development. But it's still pretty much a mystery, and like all the best mysteries, it defies easy resolution.
Clues are elusive.
Red herrings abound. Methods, mechanisms, and motives are hard to deduce. So it is too in science, as ORNL's Waldy Generoso has come to experience. From a seemingly ordinary experiment, Generoso has stumbled upon extraordinary results, clues that might help crack the mystery of how we got here, evidence that might also help to explain how things can go wrong on the journey. In 1987, under funding from the Department of Energy and the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, Generoso attempted yet another experiment in mutagenesis.