Live from the hen's egg
Wednesday, July 10, 2013 - 04:30
in Physics & Chemistry
Like a contortionist, twisted the chick is lying in its eggshell, brain, eyes, and beak visible in levels of grey. In small white circles, the flowing blood of the active chick flashes again and again on the MRI system’s monitor. The chick bumps with its head back and forth and finally cracks the eggshell. Scientists have now managed to film the natural embryonic development and hatching of a chicken in real time through MRI. To accomplish this, the researchers scanned fertilized eggs in a clinical MRI system with a unique imaging technique at an acquisition speed of 12 frames per second.