Inshell-grown chicken video: reality or fake?

Yes, I'm special, but what?

A couple of days ago a very interesting video was posted on the Spoon & Tamago Facebook page, showing a group of Japanese schoolchildren trying to realize an interesting idea. Namely - to grow a chicken in artificial conditions, in an incubator, in an egg without shell. The group described this experience as "the first in the world." All this is framed in the form of shows that the Japanese love so much, but the video does not get any less interesting - not every day you have to see how an ordinary yolk with protein gradually turns into a living being.

In fact, earlier such experiments were already carried out in laboratory conditions. The technique for raising chickens in an unshell egg was developed by scientists - professors Yutaka Tahara and Katsuya Obara. These same scientists took part in this school experiment, controlling the actions of students.

What is the significance of the technology for growing chicken from eggs without shells? According to the scientists who developed this method, it can be useful for working with the genetic material of the embryo. In particular, working with such an “egg” allows scientists to manipulate the embryo genome at almost any stage of its development. Also, this technology may be useful for specialists working in the field of regenerative medicine.



Scientists also work with embryos inside the eggshell, but for this it was necessary to create narrow holes in the shell. Working in such conditions is not too comfortable. Methods using artificial shells or containers with membrane walls permeable for gas exchange are also used. But none of these methods allowed to breed chickens with a more than 50% chance of embryo survival.

What experiments can be done with embryos? Well, for example, try to grow a dinosaur. Scientists have already partially achieved success in this matter.



So, as a result of interference in the embryo development process, proteins that are responsible for the formation of the beak were blocked. As a result, the skull of modified chickens became more like a skull of a reptilethan on the skull of a bird. The beak of the bird itself is enlarged incisive intermaxillary bones, merged into a monolithic structure.

The technique proposed by Japanese scientists ensures the survival of embryos at a very high level - more than 90% up to 17 days of development. In order to ensure the normal development of the poultry embryo, specialists have developed a method of “supplying” calcium to the embryo. This is done with calcium lactate and distilled water. Oxygen is also needed, and its scientists supply it in its purest form. As a result, 14 eggshells give 8 chickens. The remaining embryos, unfortunately, die. Thus, the efficiency of the method is 57.1%.

The video with schoolchildren is not a demonstration of the first rearing of an unshell chicken. Moreover, it is not the first demonstration: a similar video has already been shown on Japanese television.