Now playing: "Fly Morph-O-Genesis"

Natural History, Feb, 2002 by Robert (American businessman and engineer) Anderson

Nothing in biology is as amazing as the process by which a single cell becomes a fully formed organism. But the mystery is rapidly fading. A visit to the Web site of the Society for Developmental Biology gave me a glimpse of the remarkable progress being made in deciphering the steps nature takes to fashion a fly or a human being from a simple egg.

Although I am not a biologist, I was drawn by the society's Developmental Biology Cinema (sdb.bio.purdue.edu /dbcinema/index.html). According to the creators of the site, "the stars of this project are the embryos." I have always been a fan of images that impart some new scientific understanding. One of these short clips, "Calcium Tsunami," shows how a wave of chemical reactions sweeps across the membrane of a newly fertilized egg to exclude other sperm. Another, "Dynamics of Thin Filopodia," shows tiny appendages emerging from cells that are feeling their way about as they jostle for proper position within a sea urchin embryo.

The award winner, however, has to be "Fly Morph-O-Genesis." I played some of the clips backward and forward a number of times to watch a variety of developmental steps--such as "gastrulation" (when a multicellular organism's basic body plan is established) and "head involution"--work their magic.

Should these movies spark your curiosity, the society has a great list of links to courses for students at different levels, as well as scientific resources such as the Interactive Fly (sdb.bio .purdue.edu/fiy/aimain/1aahome.htm), a cyberspace guide to Drosophila genes and their role in development.

Robert Anderson is a freelance science writer living in Los Angeles.