It looks like the outbreak among the bonobos I blogged about last week is over. From an update from Vanessa Woods:
For its first four weeks, a human embryo looks like a crumpled tube. But around its twenty-seventh day of development, four buds bulge from its sides. Over the next few days, the buds grow like tulips, stretching out into flattened stalks and blooming into crowns of fingers and toes. Inside these developing limbs, bones condense. Muscle cells, tendons, blood vessels and nerves all find their respective places. The embryo now has hands with thumbs to suck, legs ready to deliver a kick. Continue reading “How To Make A Hand”
The New York Times, April 6, 2009
For its first four weeks, a human embryo looks like a crumpled tube. But around its twenty-seventh day of development, four buds bulge from its sides. Over the next few days, the buds grow like tulips, stretching out into flattened stalks and blooming into crowns of fingers and toes. Inside these developing limbs, bones condense. Muscle cells, tendons, blood vessels and nerves all find their respective places. The embryo now has hands with thumbs to suck, legs ready to deliver a kick.
For developmental biologists, the development of limbs captures all that is marvelous about embryos: how a few cells can give rise to complicated anatomy. In fact, biologists understand the development of the limb much better than any other part of the body.
Continue reading “From Developing Limbs, Insights That May Explain Much Else”
John writes, “I got it because I’m studying Marine sciences with a Bio minor at Coastal Carolina University, In my junior year and things are starting to get tough. I tend to not finish things I start. This is my motivation to persist and to succeed.”
For more on the humpback anglerfish (Melanocetus johnsonii), see here.
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
Originally published April 5, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.
Over on bloggingheads, I talk with Rob Carlson, one of the most perceptive thinkers around when it comes to pondering where biotechnology is headed. Until his new book comes out in the fall, this will have to tide us over….
Originally published April 4, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.