Embryo
Watch real embryos build themselves, cell by cell. Keep a cell and press play: forwards to see what it becomes, backwards to the cell it came from.
Three published recordings: a roundworm’s 1,330 cells at 106,275 measured positions, a sea squirt’s 58,336 published shapes, and that same roundworm again in 21,017 rebuilt ones.
Three recordings
Two animals, and then the roundworm a second time. The first gives you cells you can name and the sea squirt a body taking shape. The third is that same roundworm rebuilt from a segmentation, so you can see what a shape adds to a name.
Roundworm
Cells you can name. One C. elegans embryo, 4 cells to 580 over 6 hours: every nucleus a bead at its measured place, colored by the founding cell it descends from. Every cell has a name that spells out its ancestry.
Sea squirt
A body you can see. One Phallusia mammillata embryo, 64 cells to 702 over 4.3 hours: every cell in its real, published shape, colored by the tissue it is known to become. Cut it open and watch the gut fold inside.
Roundworm cells
The first recording again, this time with its cells’ actual shapes. Where the beads leave space between them, these cells are packed tight against their neighbors, each one named and colored by descent exactly as the beads are. Make the skin see-through and the gut, the muscle and the germ line are solid blocks inside it.