Watching sea urchin eggs trying to divide

Jun 20, 2015 • 12:13 AM UTC

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Microorganisms

Manu Prakash

I am a faculty at Stanford and run the Prakash Lab at Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. Foldscope community is at the heart of our Frugal Science movement - and I can not tell you how proud I am of this community and grassroots movement. Find our work here: http://prakashlab.stanford.edu

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It’s incredible to think about that most multicellular life forms – be it a human or a whale; start from a single cell. Just one single cell. We are more than 30 trillion cells; but all of them can be traced bag to a single cell. How remarkable is that!! Trying to wrap my head around this; I have started imagine early development of several organisms.
So here is a “failed” attempt to watch first cell division in a sea urchin larvae. The egg has just been fertilized and you see something like a spindle develop in the first cell stage. This egg failed to develop (most likely because the light was too bright). I will try this same experiment again and also share the spawning technique (how to get eggs out of sea urchins) out in the field.
Meanwhile; enjoy a time lapse video of a sea urchin egg trying (and failing) to undergo the first division. Incredibly beautiful.
Cheers
Manu
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