The “Sonic Hedgehog” was named by the quirky scientists who discovered it in the early 80s. This gene basically regulates key processes in the developing embryo all the way from when it’s deciding whether to become a frog or a human and then when it’s deciding how many fingers and eyes to grow and where to put them, and so on. The Sonic HedgeHog gene does all this by sending coded biochemical messages to all the millions of cells whose growth has to be coordinated so they become that first cute little baby you see above – the mythical “Swisher Baby”.