Electrified Embryos

We've all learned that DNA programs the cell to create the thousands of proteins the body needs to develop and flourish, but how do those proteins "know" what three-dimensional body plan to construct? How, for example, do the proteins which make up a starfish know to make a five-armed structure? This is a mystery of long-standing and some biologists have speculated that there is in organisms a source of information that is separate from the nucleotide sequences in DNA.

Now a team of researchers has discovered evidence that this is in fact the case.

Jonathan Wells writes:

Many biologists believe that embryo development is controlled by a genetic program encoded in DNA. Other biologists maintain that development cannot be reduced to a genetic program. Although DNA is involved in specifying the amino acid sequences of proteins, other sources of information are needed to specify the three-dimensional structure of the embryo. One such source is a system of spatial coordinates communicated, in part, by an endogenous electric field -- that is, an electric field generated by the embryo itself.

These electric fields circulating through and around the developing embryo superintend the development of the specific morphology that the organism will take on.

This, however, raises another question: How are these electric fields produced and regulated? It's all so very complex that it takes your breath away to think that blind, purposeless forces could have ever produced such a system. They must have, though. At least you better be prepared to say they have if you're an untenured university biology instructor who wants to keep his or her job.

Anyway, here's a short video of two members of the research team talking about their discovery:

Thanks to Evolution News and Views for the clip.