How does a single cell become me?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 May 2019
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our bodies are made of cells, tens of trillions of cells. They all have particular roles and functions in the body, from digesting food, to producing hair, to hunting down pathogens. But all of this incredible complexity started as just a single cell.
Gila, from Israel, asked CrowdScience to find out how the development of incredible structures, and systems in the body are coordinated by the cells. Are cells communicating? How do cells know what they should be doing?
To find out, Geoff Marsh meets a Cambridge researcher uncovering the first cell division in our lives, and peers into a fertile chicken egg to see the developing embryo as it grows a limb. CrowdScience finds out why scientists like Dr Megan Davey use chickens to understand the development of human fingers and investigates how individual cells with the same DNA manage to choreograph a dance of cell replication, movement and communication to create our bodies in all of their complexity.
Presenter: Geoff Marsh Producer: Rory Galloway
(Photo: Cells grouped together. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and maybe it's when I had a hand in. |
| 0:04.0 | I'm Tammy Walker and I produce podcasts for the BBC. |
| 0:08.0 | My role is to give new and diverse creators a voice with the opportunity to build a career. |
| 0:12.0 | That's the thing I love about podcasts. |
| 0:14.4 | You start with just a good idea, but then you have the space to see where it goes. |
| 0:18.4 | And doing that at the BBC means we can really run with the best stories |
| 0:21.9 | while developing the most unique audio talent. |
| 0:24.3 | So if you like what you hear, why not check out the huge range of podcast we've got on BBC |
| 0:29.1 | Sounds. This is an apricot with white cheese and this is apple. |
| 0:43.2 | I think 8 o'clock maybe for me please. |
| 0:49.2 | This is okay. |
| 0:50.2 | Delicious. |
| 0:51.2 | Look, I'm not saying that you have to give me a record strudel if you want me to come to your house and answer your science question, |
| 0:57.0 | but I'd be lying if I said it doesn't boost your chances. |
| 1:00.0 | Bribery aside, this is crowd science, the show that chews on your fabulous questions about science and finds digestible answers. |
| 1:08.0 | I am Gila Ariel. I'm going to be 71 next week. I live in Israel and I am very very happy to welcome you here |
| 1:19.6 | and to be able to ask my question. We met up in Israel a few months ago. |
| 1:24.1 | And Gila's question was fascinating. |
| 1:26.6 | I wanted to know how cells, biological cells, |
| 1:31.3 | how do they know what to do? |
| 1:33.0 | Because, for example, the little puppy that you see here, |
| 1:37.0 | the first time I saw her was on the ultrasound |
... |
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