Becoming: A Short Timelapse Film Shows a Single Cell Morphing Into a Complete, Complex Living Organism

From Jan van IJken comes “Becom­ing,” a short time­lapse film that doc­u­ments “the mirac­u­lous gen­e­sis of ani­mal life.” He writes:

In great micro­scop­ic detail, we see the ‘mak­ing of’ an Alpine Newt in its transparant egg from the first cell divi­sion to hatch­ing. A sin­gle cell is trans­formed into a com­plete, com­plex liv­ing organ­ism with a beat­ing heart and run­ning blood­stream.

The first stages of embry­on­ic devel­op­ment are rough­ly the same for all ani­mals, includ­ing humans. In the film, we can observe a uni­ver­sal process which nor­mal­ly is invis­i­ble: the very begin­ning of an ani­mal’s life.

“Becom­ing” has been “select­ed at more than 20 inter­na­tion­al film fes­ti­vals and won the award for Best short doc­u­men­tary at Inns­bruck Nature Film Fes­ti­val 2018, Aus­tria.” Enjoy.

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via Twist­ed Sifter

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