What Came First, the Chicken or the Egg: Scientists Finally Resolve a Century-Old Debate
'14.11.2024'
ForumDaily New York
Scientists believe they have finally settled the age-old debate over which came first – the chicken or the egg. Daily Mail reveals the secret of an age-old mystery that has baffled scientists for hundreds of years.
Scientists from the University of Geneva argue that the building blocks of female reproductive cells - eggs - appeared long before chickens appeared.
The eggs won
They analyzed the single-celled species Chromosphaera perkinskii, discovered in 2017 in marine sediments off Hawaii.
The first signs of its presence on Earth date back more than a billion years - long before the first animals appeared.
On the subject: People age not gradually, but abruptly: scientists have explained when to expect health deterioration
Researchers noticed that this species forms multicellular structures. They bear a striking resemblance to animal embryos.
This discovery suggests that the genetic programs responsible for embryonic development (the process by which a fertilized egg develops into an embryo) were already present before animals appeared.
Thus nature must have had the genetic tools to "create eggs" long before it "invented chickens."
"C. perkinsii is a single-celled species. Its behavior shows that multicellular processes of coordination and differentiation were already present in this species, long before the first animals appeared on Earth," said study author Omaia Dudin.
Previous research suggests that even hard-shelled eggs like those of chickens are unlikely to have evolved before 300 million years ago.
"It's fascinating! A species that was discovered so recently allows us to go back in time more than a billion years," said Marine Olivetta, the study's first author.
A separate study published this year suggests that the ability to lay eggs regularly (compared to other birds) is what made chickens so attractive to humans thousands of years ago, leading to their domestication and evolution into the chicken we know today.
