Video about growing chicken without a shell: reality or fake?

Yes, I am special, but what?

A couple of days ago, on Facebook's Spoon & Tamago page, a very interesting video was posted 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 a shell. The group described this experience as “the first in the world.” All this is in the form of a show that the Japanese love so much, but the video doesn’t become less interesting - not every day you have to see how an ordinary yolk with protein gradually turns into a living being.

In fact, previously similar experiments have already been conducted in the laboratory. The technique of growing chickens in a shell-free egg was developed by scientists - professors Yutaka Tahara and Katsuya Obara. The same scientists took part in this school experiment, controlling the actions of students.

What is the significance of the technology of growing chicken from an egg without a shell? 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 genome of the embryo at almost any stage of its development. Also, this technology can be useful for professionals working in the field of regenerative medicine.
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Scientists are working with embryos inside the egg with the shell, but for this it was necessary to create narrow holes in the shell. Working in such conditions is not too comfortable. Also applied methods using artificial shells or containers with permeable to gas exchange membrane walls. But none of these methods allowed chickens to be raised with a more than 50% chance of embryo survival.

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



Thus, as a result of interference with the development of the embryo, proteins that are responsible for the formation of the beak were blocked. As a result, the skull of modified chickens became more like a reptile's skull than a bird's skull. The bird's beak itself is an enlarged incisal intermaxillary bone, merged into a monolithic structure.

The technique proposed by Japanese scientists ensures the survival of embryos at a very high level - more than 90% before 17 days of development. In order to ensure the normal development of the bird embryo, experts have developed a method of "supplying" the calcium to the embryo. This is done with calcium lactate and distilled water. Oxygen is also needed, and its scientists supply it in pure form. In the end, 14 eggs without shells give 8 chickens. The rest of the embryos, unfortunately, are dying. Thus, the efficiency of the method is 57.1%.

The video with schoolchildren is not a demonstration of the first cultivation of a chicken without a shell. Moreover, it is not the first demonstration: a similar video has already been shown on Japanese television.