The Window of the Universe
The Life Inside an Egg
Life being taking shape
Once a cell starts dividing inside a chicken egg, a heart is generated in less than 44 hours,
and starts beating. Blood flows inside vessels, and suddenly turns bright red with oxygen taken in.
The ultra-high-definition image capturing the development of an embryo
from the yolk of a chicken egg vividly depicts the process of a life being born and taking shape.
Exhibition Contents
The initial stages of development into what will ultimately become a chick are captured on camera in 8K resolution using a cutting-edge microscope.
Back Story
An image generated with
the enthusiasm of a researcher
This image was generated thanks to the passion of late Mr. ASAKA Tokio, who had long been working as a researcher in Yone Production, a company creating many visual works in the area of medical and life science. Mr. Asaka was engaged in the study of the generation of chicks from 1950s, and devoted his life to filming and recording the process of such study. This image was realized with his record of study and the latest technology.
The filming itself took a long time. In order to arrange the conditions of egg incubation and the conditions for observation using a microscope, more than 800 eggs were used in total. He repeatedly went through such work as obtaining Fertilized chicken egg, preparing specimens, and creating conditions for shooting.
The 8K microscope that sheds
new light on life science
Conventional microscopes have a limited field of view, so magnification had to be increased greatly to observe fine details. So, it was necessary to identify the spot to be observed in advance, and implement observation on that specific point.
However, the microscope with 8K definition used for creating this image provides a very wide field of view, so you can see the entire picture of the thing you want to observe, and cut out the necessary part afterwards. This microscope has the potential to significantly change observation methods using microscopes. It is attracting attention not only in the field of bioscience but also in the field of medicine.
Chick embryo
Chick embryos have been used for various purposes in basic life science studies and biotechnology because they are easy to obtain, they are relatively large among many animals and thus are easy to observe, and they share many aspects in common with mammals in terms of evolution. As a familiar example, the influenza vaccine is produced by using a chick embryo.
