How can a cell store information and instructions on how to build a body or do anything at all? I mean it is a cell i don’t get how can it send detailed instructions on how a human body works or where to put the brain or things like that lol
Such as when a women is pregnant how can a cell literally build another human being knowing exactly that it needs 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 eyes a nose, fingers and everything to be in place?
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Developmental biology is complicated, but the answer to your specific question – how does the body know where to put things – is a particular set of genes called [homeobox genes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeobox). They work by activating in a way that depends on a cell’s environment during very early development: a cell on the outside has a different environment, so it can “tell” it’s on the outside as opposed to the inside, for example. Those cells then multiply, giving rise to large clusters of cells that all “remember” (though a chemical marker on the DNA) where they came from.
Mutation in those genes cause really wacky developmental weirdness. A famous example is that if you knock out a particular gene in a fruit fly, it’ll grow legs instead of antennae (despite being otherwise normal).
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