Embryo: A Look at Life
1973 AD
1973 1973
18.03E59.20N
NAT

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
	People have always been able to see much of the world around them, and even -- by examining dead people -- to observe the interior structure of the human body.
	But it is only recently that optical and surgical equipment has been developed that allow us to watch the interior of the body in action. In this picture we see one of the most amazing aspects of life, the development of a human being in its mother's womb.
	Because human beings are born all the time, we sometimes forget how amazing this process is.
	The life process starts when two half-cells -- one half from the mother and the other half from the father -- join together into one full-cell.
	Though this cell is so tiny you couldn't see it without a microscope, it contains an astonishing amount of information. The entire design for a person, a being more complicated than anything people have ever designed, is contained in just the smallest part of the cell. This information chain (called "DNA," for deoxyribonucleic acid) is so small that scientists can't see it with regular optical microscopes, so they use powerful electron microscopes. If computer designers could easily duplicate this information chain, they could build computers far more powerful than anything available today.
	But this original cell not only contains all the information necessary to design a human body, but also has the ability to build the body. In other words, this little cell is not only like a giant library, but also like a factory that can reproduce itself!
	Over nine months in the womb, the body grows. Within several weeks you can begin to recognize the head, then later you can see the arms and feet, and finally -- at birth -- the full body.
