development human developing generation Embryology is the study of the development of organisms. This is as true of plants as it is of animals. Seed formation proceeds following fertilization in higher plants. The seed consists of the embryo, the seed coat, and another part sometimes called the endosperm. While plants are extraordinarily important for survival of animal life, animal embryology is described here. The dictionary definition limits the meaning of the term "embryo" to developing animals that are unhatched or not yet born. Human embryos are defined as developing humans during the first eight weeks after conception. The reason that many embryologists have difficulty with this terminology is that it is purely arbitrary. It would be difficult indeed, if not impossible, to discriminate a human embryo nearing the end of the eighth week from a developing human during the ninth week after conception. Correspondingly, there are no morphological events that distinguish a pre-hatching frog tadpole from a post-hatching tadpole (hatching never occurs synchronously in an egg massthere are always those that hatch early and those larvae which are dilatory). Embryologists consider development from a zygote to a multicellular organism. In the particular case of humans, development does not even stop … Continue reading →

embryology,vertebrate embryosEncyclopdia Britannica, Inc.the study of the formation and development of an embryo and fetus. Before widespread use of the microscope and the advent of cellular biology in the 19th century, embryology was based on descriptive and comparative studies. From the time of the Greek philosopher Aristotle it was debated whether the embryo was a preformed, miniature individual (a homunculus) or an undifferentiated form that gradually became specialized. Supporters of the latter theory included Aristotle; the English physician William Harvey, who labeled the theory epigenesis; the German physician Caspar Friedrick Wolff; and the Prussian-Estonian scientist Karl Ernst, Ritter von Baer, who proved epigenesis with his discovery of the mammalian ovum (egg) in 1827. Other pioneers were the French scientists Pierre Belon and Marie-Franois-Xavier Bichat. Baer, who helped popularize Christian Heinrich Panders 1817 discovery of primary germ layers, laid the foundations of modern comparative embryology in his landmark two-volume work ber Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere (182837; On the Development of Animals). Another formative publication was A Treatise on Comparative Embryology (188091) by the British zoologist Frances Maitland Balfour. Further research on embryonic development was conducted by the German anatomists Martin H. Rathke and Wilhelm Roux and also by the American scientist Thomas … Continue reading →