Shell-less hatching of a chick embryo

November 8, 2019 8:20 AM

In 2014, Yutaka Tahara and Katsuya Obara published a paper on a new method they had developed for hatching a chicken embryo without an egg. This is what it looks like. [via]
posted by Sokka shot first (18 comments total)

holy shit this is amazing
posted by curious nu at 8:38 AM on November 8, 2019 [1 favorite]

IT START BLINKING
I START LEAVING
posted by hat_eater at 8:43 AM on November 8, 2019 [3 favorites]

Very cool to watch--particularly how "low-tech" it is. I don't think I will forget that it takes around 21 days for a chick to hatch having watched it like this.
posted by agatha_magatha at 8:48 AM on November 8, 2019 [2 favorites]

I feel quite inadequate about how much I have achieved the last three weeks.
posted by edd at 8:51 AM on November 8, 2019 [3 favorites]

すごい!!!!
posted by Going To Maine at 9:13 AM on November 8, 2019 [1 favorite]

What's the purpose of the benzalkonium chloride added through a hole in the bottom of the cup?
posted by beagle at 9:19 AM on November 8, 2019

What's the purpose of the benzalkonium chloride added through a hole in the bottom of the cup?

Looks like it is used to keep the water at the bottom of the cup sterile; the water in turn is needed to keep the humidity in the artificial egg at 100%. The video is kind of simplified compared to the paper. It doesn't show the incubator and supplemental oxygen described in the paper, for example, and doesn't mention that the plastic film needs holes (that you can see in the video) to let the supplemental oxygen in. Still, a really neat and impressive achievement!
posted by TedW at 9:27 AM on November 8, 2019 [2 favorites]

I am conflicted. Amazing, but I can't deny some element of me shrieking LEAVE WELL ALONE!

I do fret about the foetus being subject to direct light - they don't mention light values at all in the paper, couldn't any increase in radiation effect protein structure or tissue development?
posted by freya_lamb at 9:30 AM on November 8, 2019 [3 favorites]

This almost seems like a weird food hack at first, some obscure method to cook an egg in a cup with a microwave or something. Very interesting to see it go from a plain ol' uncooked egg to a live being.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:35 AM on November 8, 2019 [2 favorites]

I like the chick's "What the hell!?!" expression when it 'hatches'. The subtitle should read - Where's my fucking shell?!
posted by helmutdog at 9:43 AM on November 8, 2019 [1 favorite]

Bigger than before
posted by theodolite at 9:50 AM on November 8, 2019 [3 favorites]

> particularly how "low-tech" it is

Judging from the paper, this was done as a high-school science project!!! How cool is that! [nb: not a question]
posted by Westringia F. at 9:59 AM on November 8, 2019 [2 favorites]

I'm looking forward to seeing de-extincted dodos hatching from big-gulps in the near future.
posted by eotvos at 10:35 AM on November 8, 2019 [2 favorites]

Gah, I saw something the other day that was like an an embryo forming but it looked so much more distressing than this. Very tiny little almost insectlike burrowing movements. Did anyone else see it? It was creepy as hell, but also cool, and maybe it's just a render, but it was cool. Wish I had a link.

This is so not as scary as I expected after that.
posted by symbioid at 10:44 AM on November 8, 2019

OK this is the thing I saw. I'm not sure this is real, especially comparing to the chicken, but is this not creepy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_sLwmJ3qoM
posted by symbioid at 1:40 PM on November 8, 2019 [1 favorite]

I think the salamander one is real too, the director thanks his "friends at the Dutch microscopy club" and "Alex Kenter salamander breeder with endless patience in providing eggs."
posted by youzicha at 2:54 PM on November 8, 2019

I think we like to imagine that inanimate matter and Sentient Life are fundamentally distinct, and that the process of reproduction thus requires a semi-magical event (birth, hatching) to convert the former into the latter. To see behind the curtain and directly view inanimate matter (and worse food) incrementally self-assemble into a sentient being is thus disturbing.
posted by Pyry at 7:30 PM on November 8, 2019 [3 favorites]

particularly how "low-tech" it is

This is a classic experiment, been done for ages as a teaching tool, but aside from the wipes - an excellent youtube,
posted by porpoise at 8:08 PM on November 8, 2019 [2 favorites]