Scientists Crack the Chicken or Egg Mystery
Originally Published 1 year ago — by ScienceAlert
Scientists have discovered that the unicellular Ichthyosporean microbe Chromosphaera perkinsii exhibits embryonic-like cell division, suggesting that the genetic programming for eggs may have existed before animals. This microbe, which has been around for over a billion years, forms a blastula-like cluster of cells, similar to animal embryos. The findings imply that the genetic toolkit for embryonic development was present before the emergence of animals, offering insights into the evolutionary origins of multicellularity. The study, published in Nature, explores whether these similarities are due to a common ancestor or convergent evolution.