Preformationism in the Enlightenment

By Cera R. Lawrence

Preformationism was a theory of embryological development used in the late seventeenth through the late eighteenth centuries. This theory held that the generation of offspring occurs as a result of an unfolding and growth of preformed parts. There were two competing models of preformationism: the ovism model, in which the location of these preformed parts prior to gestation was the maternal egg, and the spermism model, in which a preformed individual or homunculus was thought to exist in the head of each sperm.

Created 2008-08-11

Last modified 5 years 3 weeks ago

Ovism

By Cera R. Lawrence

Ovism was one of two models of preformationism, a theory of generation prevalent in the late seventeenth through the end of the eighteenth century. Contrary to the competing theory of epigenesis (gradual emergence of form), preformationism held that the unborn offspring existed fully formed in the eggs or sperm of its parents prior to conception. The ovist model held that the maternal egg was the location of this preformed embryo, while the other preformationism model known as spermism preferred the paternal germ cell, as the name implies.

Created 2008-08-13

Last modified 2 years 3 months ago

Thomas Hunt Morgan's Definition of Regeneration: Morphallaxis and Epimorphosis

By Mary E. Sunderland

For Thomas Hunt Morgan clarity was of utmost importance. He was therefore frustrated with the many disparate, disconnected terms that were used to refer to similar, if not the same, regenerative processes within organisms. When Morgan wrote Regeneration in 1901 there had been many different terms developed and adopted by various investigators to describe their observations. As a result there were many inconsistencies making it difficult to discuss results comparatively and also making it more challenging to generalize. Defining terms was a priority for Morgan.

Created 2009-06-09

Last modified 5 years 3 weeks ago

Carnegie Stages

By Karen Wellner

Historically the exact age of human embryo specimens has long perplexed embryologists. With the menstrual history of the mother often unknown or not exact, and the premenstrual and postmenstrual phases varying considerably among women, age sometimes came down to a best guess based on the weight and size of the embryo. Wilhelm His was one of the first to write comparative descriptions of human embryos in the late 1800s. Soon afterward, Franklin P. Mall, the first director of the Carnegie Institution of Washington's (CIW) Department of Embryology, expanded upon His' work.

Created 2009-07-17

Last modified 5 years 3 weeks ago

Stem Cell Tourism

By Christina Raup

When James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin announced in 1998 that he had derived and cultured human embryonic stem cells(hESCs), Americans widely believed-and accepted-that stem cells would one day be the basis of a multitude of regenerative medical techniques. Researchers promised that they would soon be able to cure a variety of diseases and injuries such as cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries, severe burns, and many others. But it wasn't until January 2009 that the Food and Drug Administration approved the first human clinical trials using hESCs.

Created 2010-06-14

Last modified 5 years 3 weeks ago

Reassessment of Carrel's Immortal Tissue Culture Experiments

By Lijing Jiang

In the 1910s, Alexis Carrel, a French surgeon and biologist, concluded that cells are intrinsically immortal. His claim was based on chick-heart tissue cultures in his laboratory that seemed to be able to proliferate forever. Carrel's ideas about cellular immortality convinced his many contemporaries that cells could be maintained indefinitely. In the 1960s, however, Carrel's thesis about cell immortality was put into question by the discovery that human diploid cells can only proliferate for a finite period.

Created 2010-06-28

Last modified 5 years 3 weeks ago

The French Flag Model

By Jack Resnik

The French flag model represents how embryonic cells receive and respond to genetic information and subsequently differentiate into patterns. Created by Lewis Wolpert in the late 1960s, the model uses the French tricolor flag as visual representation to explain how embryonic cells can interpret genetic code to create the same pattern even when certain pieces of the embryo are removed. Wolpert's model has provided crucial theoretical framework for investigating universal mechanisms of pattern formation during development.

Created 2011-05-19

Last modified 5 years 3 weeks ago

Fetus in Fetu

By Corinne DeRuiter

Fetus in fetu is a rare variety of parasitic twins , where the developmentally abnormal parasitic twin is completely encapsulated within the torso of the otherwise normally developed host twin. In the late eighteenth century, German anatomist Johann Friedrich Meckel was the first to described fetus in fetu, which translates to “fetus within fetus.” Fetus in fetu is thought to result from the unequal division of the totipotent inner cell mass , the mass of cells that is the ancestral precursor to all cells in the body.

Created 2012-05-30

Last modified 3 years 7 months ago

Epithelium

By Kate MacCord

Frederik Ruysch, working in the Netherlands, introduced the term epithelia in the third volume of his Thesaurus Anatomicus in 1703. Ruysch created the term from the Greek epi, which means on top of, and thele, which means nipple, to describe the type of tissue he found when dissecting the lip of a cadaver. In the mid nineteenth century, anatomist Albrecht von Haller adopted the word epithelium, designating Ruysch's original terminology as the plural version. In modern science, epithelium is a type of animal tissue in which cells are packed into neatly arranged sheets.

Created 2012-10-17

Last modified 3 years 7 months ago

Human Evolution Inferred from Tooth Growth and Development

By Kate MacCord

To study human evolution, researchers sometimes use microstructures found in human teeth and their knowledge of the processes by which those structures grow. Human fetusus begin to develop teeth in utero. As teeth grow, they form a hard outer substance, called enamel, through a process called amelogenesis. During amelogenesis, incremental layers of enamel form in a Circadian rhythm. This rhythmic deposition leaves the enamel with microstructures, called cross-striations and striae of Retzius, which have a regular periodicity.

Created 2013-03-28

Last modified 3 years 7 months ago

The Role of the Notch Signaling Pathway in Myogenesis

By Justin M. Wolter

Among other functions, the Notch signaling pathway forestalls the process of myogenesis in animals. The Notch signaling pathway is a pathway in animals by which two adjacent cells within an organism use a protein named Notch to mechanically interact with each other. Myogenesis is the formation of muscle that occurs throughout an animal's development, from embryo to the end of life. The cellular precursors of skeletal muscle originate in somites that form along the dorsal side of the organism.

Created 2013-07-26

Last modified 3 years 8 months ago

Essay: The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate

By Valerie Racine

In 1830, a dispute erupted in the halls of lÕAcad mie des Sciences in Paris between the two most prominent anatomists of the nineteenth century. Georges Cuvier and tienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, once friends and colleagues at the Paris Museum, became arch rivals after this historical episode. Like many important disputes in the history of science, this debate echoes several points of contrasts between the two thinkers.

Created 2013-10-07

Last modified 4 years 11 months ago

Frog Embryo in the Blastula Stage

By Chinami Michaels

StageName: 8

Illustration of the animal-vegetal gradient in Xenopus laevis ( African clawed frog) eggs after fertilization. During fertilization, the sperm s point of entry determines the future dorsal side (shaded) and ventral side (unshaded) of the embryo. The prospective ventral side of the embryo forms on the side where the sperm enters while the prospective dorsal side forms opposite the sperm s point of entry.

Created 2013-12-16

Last modified 3 months 2 weeks ago

The Blastoderm in Chicks During Early Gastrulation

By Chinami Michaels

StageName: 4

This image shows a chicken (Gallus gallus) embryo undergoing gastrulation in stage four (18-19 hrs after laying) according to the Hamburger-Hamilton staging series. At this point in time the chicken embryo is a blastoderm (shown in blue). The first magnification of the embryo shows that the blastoderm cell layers have thickened to form the primitive streak and Hensen's node. The primitive streak extends from the posterior (P) region to the anterior (A) region. The second rectangular magnification shows the blastoderm cross-sectioned through the primitive streak.

Created 2014-02-26

Last modified 3 months 2 weeks ago

The Role of the Notch signaling pathway in Somitogenesis

By Justin M. Wolter

Among other functions, the Notch signaling pathway contributes to the development of somites in animals. It involves a cell signaling mechanism with a wide range of functions, including cellular differentiation, and the formation of the embryonic structures (embryogenesis). All multicellular animals use Notch signaling, which is involved in the development, maintenance, and regeneration of a range of tissues. The Notch signaling pathways spans two cells, and consists of receptor proteins, which cross one cell's membrane and interacts with proteins on adjacent cells, called ligands.

Created 2014-03-23

Last modified 4 years 6 months ago

Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex (1998), by Alice Domurat Dreger

By Mary Drago

Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, by historian of science Alice Domurat Dreger, was published in 1998 by Harvard University Press. In the book, Dreger describes how many doctors and scientists treated human hermaphrodites from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. She states that during this time period, many physicians and scientists struggled to determine the nature sex, and to support a classification of sex as male or female, many physicians and scientists resorted to viewing a person's gonads for identification of his or her sex.

Created 2014-04-09

Last modified 2 years 1 week ago

"On the Origin of Mitosing Cells" (1967), by Lynn Sagan

By Dorothy Regan Haskett

On the Origin of Mitosing Cells by Lynn Sagan appeared in the March 1967 edition of the Journal of Theoretical Biology. At the time the article was published, Lynn Sagan had divorced astronomer Carl Sagan, but kept his last name. Later, she remarried and changed her name to Lynn Margulis, and will be referred to as such throughout this article. In her 1967 article, Margulis develops a theory for the origin of complex cells that have enclosed nuclei, called eukaryotic cells.

Created 2014-04-15

Last modified 4 years 6 months ago

George W. Beadle's One Gene-One Enzyme Hypothesis

By Divyash Chhetri

The one gene-one enzyme hypothesis, proposed by George Wells Beadle in the US in 1941, is the theory that each gene directly produces a single enzyme, which consequently affects an individual step in a metabolic pathway. In 1941, Beadle demonstrated that one gene in a fruit fly controlled a single, specific chemical reaction in the fruit fly, which one enzyme controlled.

Created 2014-05-23

Last modified 4 years 4 months ago

Charles Darwin's Theory of Pangenesis

By Yawen Zou

In 1868 in England, Charles Darwin proposed his pangenesis theory to describe the units of inheritance between parents and offspring and the processes by which those units control development in offspring. Darwin coined the concept of gemmules, which he said referred to hypothesized minute particles of inheritance thrown off by all cells of the body. The theory suggested that an organism's environment could modify the gemmules in any parts of the body, and that these modified gemmules would congregate in the reproductive organs of parents to be passed on to their offspring.

Created 2014-07-20

Last modified 4 years 2 months ago

Purkinje Cells

By Mandana Minai

Purkinje cells, also called Purkinje neurons, are neurons in vertebrate animals located in the cerebellar cortex of the brain. Purkinje cell bodies are shaped like a flask and have many threadlike extensions called dendrites, which receive impulses from other neurons called granule cells. Each cell also has a single projection called an axon, which transmits impulses to the part of the brain that controls movement, the cerebellum. Purkinje cells are inhibitory neurons: they secrete neurotransmitters that bind to receptors that inhibit or reduce the firing of other neurons.

Created 2014-08-12

Last modified 4 years 2 months ago

Mechanism of Notch Signaling

By Cheryl Lancaster

Object is a digital image of Notch signaling between a signaling cell and a receiving cell. Labels indicate the signaling and receiving cells, nuclear membrane, Notch receptor, the ligand, a protease, a transcription factor and a repressor. The image depicts three stages involved in Notch signaling, including the binding of the ligand with the receptor, the action of the protease, and the Notch intracellular domain fragment replacing the repressor in the nucleus.

Mechanism of Notch Signaling: The image depicts a type of cell signaling, in which two animal cells interact and transmit a molecular signal from one to the other. The process results in the production of proteins, which influence the cells as they differentiate, move, and contribute to embryological development. In the membrane of the signaling cell, there is a ligand (represented by a green oval). The ligand functions to activate a change in a receptor molecule. In the receiving cell, there are receptors; in this case, Notch proteins (represented by orange forks).

Created 2014-08-21

Last modified 3 months 2 weeks ago

Some of the Cells that Arise from Animal Gastrulas with Three Germ Layers

By Chinami Michaels

Object is a digital image of an animal triploblastic gastrula. The image labels the three germ layers and some of the fully differentiated cell types that arise from those germ layers. The image shows the egg and sperm germ cells. It also shows and labels the epithelial cells, liver cells, and endothelial cells that develop from endoderm. It also shows the skeletal musclecells, osteoblast cells, cardiac muscle cells, and red blood cells that develop from the mesoderm. It also shows the hair cells, skin cells, and neuron cells that develop from the ectoderm.

From a developing embryos three primary germ layers, ectoderm (green), mesoderm (pink) and endoderm (yellow), a variety of differentiated cell types and organ systems arise, far more than are shown here. The three primary germ layers are shown during the gastrula stage because they become distinct at the gastrula stage. The germ cells (blue) are pre- cursors to sperm and egg cells, and they are set aside early in development, and are thought to arise from the ectoderm.

Created 2014-08-21

Last modified 3 months 2 weeks ago

Neurocristopathies

By M. Elizabeth Barnes

Neurocristopathies are a class of pathologies in vertebrates,
including humans, that result from abnormal expression, migration,
differentiation, or death of neural crest cells (NCCs) during embryonic development. NCCs are cells
derived from the embryonic cellular structure called the neural crest.
Abnormal NCCs can cause a neurocristopathy by chemically affecting the
development of the non-NCC tissues around them. They can also affect the
development of NCC tissues, causing defective migration or

Created 2014-09-19

Last modified 4 years 3 weeks ago

"Evolution and Tinkering" (1977), by Francois Jacob

By Valerie Racine

In his essay Evolution and Tinkering, published in
Science in 1977, Francois Jacob argued that a common analogy
between the process of evolution by natural selection and the
methods of engineering is problematic. Instead, he proposed to
describe the process of evolution with the concept of
bricolage (tinkering). In this essay, Jacob did not deny the
importance of the mechanism of natural selection in shaping complex
adaptations. Instead, he maintained that the cumulative effects of

Created 2014-10-24

Last modified 3 years 11 months ago