How organisms are organised
Like any well-run operation, a body is made of specialised parts

ALL LIFE is made of cells. But to build a complex, multicelled organism from those cells almost always requires them to come in more than one type. This means that as cells multiply in a growing organism they need to differentiate, which they do by expressing different subsets of genes from within the genome they all share. Different patterns of gene expression produce different types of cell.
This article appeared in the Schools brief section of the print edition under the headline “Leaves, limbs and lights”
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