Seeing Ourselves in a Grain of Sand  All the molecules in our
bodies have roots in the formation and maturation of the earth.
Sam Kean reviews Neil Shubin's "The Universe Within."  Jan. 11,
2013 3:10 p.m. ET  Science can really deflate you. You think
human beings are special? Well, crows can use tools, chimps can
paint, and Neanderthals had bigger brains. Heck, octopuses can
open jars. Is Earth special? Not really. Astronomers have found
well more than a thousand planets orbiting distant stars, and
they will probably find a "mirror Earth"—a rocky doppelgänger
with liquid water—within the year. Surely, though, the universe
itself is unique, almost by definition. Afraid not. Physicists
now routinely invoke the "multiverse" with its bazillions of
parallel universes to explain how space-time works. As Neil...
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