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Nature Podcast

Audio long-read: Push, pull and squeeze – the hidden forces that shape life

Nature Podcast

podcast@nature.com

News, Science, Technology

4.5893 Ratings

🗓️ 28 January 2021

⏱️ 18 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Researchers are probing the subtle physical forces that sculpt cells and bodies.


At every stage of life, from embryo to adulthood, physical forces tug and squeeze at bodies from within.


These forces are vital, ensuring that cells are correctly positioned in a developing embryo, for example. But they also play a role in diseases like cancer. Yet despite their importance, relatively little is known about how cells sense, respond to and generate these forces.


To find out, researchers have turned to bespoke tools and methods, using them to probe lab-cultured cells and whole animals to get to the root of how mechanical forces sculpt life.


This is an audio version of our feature: The secret forces that squeeze and pull life into shape


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello everyone. My name is Jamie Lang and I'm the host of Great Company podcast and today we are

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0:55.3

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1:26.4

Welcome to this audio long read from nature. In this episode, The Secret Forces that squeeze and pull life into shape.

1:30.0

Written by Amber Dance and read by me, Benjamin Thompson.

1:38.5

At first, an embryo has no front or back, head or tail.

1:41.2

It's a simple sphere of cells.

1:48.0

But soon enough, the smooth clump begins to change. Fluid pools in the middle of the sphere. Cells flow like honey to take up their positions in the future body. Sheets of cells fold

1:55.1

origami style, building a heart, a gut, a brain. None of this could happen without forces that squeeze,

2:04.2

bend and tug the growing animal into shape. Even when it reaches adulthood, its cells will

...

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