EMBRYO GEOMETRY
the science of understanding the patterns we see in dividing cells
The origin of the shapes of plants and animals lies in the patterns that form geometrically in dividing embryonic cells. The form of the human body derives from natural self-organization much as does the rainbow, the wave and the daisy. Genus and species are the result of the different ways cells can form a ball.
How does nature shape plants and animals? How does evolution work? The recent history of the science of evolution and embryology has reviewed and rejected natural selection and the DNA code as candidates. Today the sole theory of interest is mechanobiology, pursued by thousands of investigators in hundreds of organizations. A common belief is that the embryo is formed by the self-organization of patterns in the dividing cells. Yet the failure to make head nor tail of the first embryonic structures has defied the direct observation of the process. Embryogenesis remains a mystery.
The model proposed is the result of over thirty years of investigation with the participation of numbers of scientists and illustrators. It is presented as “blueprints” for the making of virtually all plant and animal body and surface forms in over a thousand mechanical drawings and photographs.
The path from one cell to adult human is depicted in simple animations where each step is caused mechanically by the conditions of the previous step. The intuitively comprehensible mechanical and geometrical processes are presented without mathematical equations or chemical formulae.
Embryo Geometry, The Model
The vertebrate embryo is the shriveled remnant that results from the bursting of the simple swollen, balloon-like blastula, much as the prune is a dried plum. (The embryo of a fish cannot be readily distinguished from that of the human.)
The following is a hypothetical model based on the predictable, plausible, mechanical consequences of the bursting of the swollen bilayer blastula.
THE STEPS OF EMBRYOGENESIS
1. The swollen spheroidal bilayer blastula bursts by splitting from pole to pole along the future ventral midline;
2. The tense blastula membrane recoils dorsally;
3. The entire dorsal half of the blastula membrane is forced into the dorsal midline that seals over, forming the nerve cord and the central nervous system. The neurons, newly formed by the compression of the blastocysts, extrude into the brain case of the forming skull;
4. The model hypothesizes that the blastula membrane is subdivided in a number of self-organized circumferential banded girdles. This supposition provides a model for the shaping of the vertebrate torso, limbs, and skull, as well as the segmented insect and crustacean body;
5. The development of the outer layer of the blastula accounts for a multitude of structures including human hair patterns, the shell of the turtle and armadillo, and the many bizarre dorsal structures on the dinosaurs.
The outer layer of the blasula forms a variety of dorsal structures in the dinosaur.
A detailed illustration showing recoil from the ventral midline, forming the neural tube on the dorsal side. The dorsal tube extrudes into the brain case forming the brain and sense organs as the skull segments form the structure of the skull.
The axioms of self-organizations include: 1) initial subdivision in three axes; 2) the basic division into a hollow animal blastula or a solid plant sphere; 3) plant growth through multilayer telescoping; 4) animal growth in either radial or bilateral models; 5) the principles of multilayer growth; 6) superficial patterning as a result of geometrical self-organization.
An overview showing the extrusion of the neural tube into the brain case and its expansion, forming the brain.
THE ORIGIN OF ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY IN THE SELF-ORGANIZED STRUCTURE OF THE BLASTULA
Around 1906 American pioneer physiologist Ida M. Hyde discovered and measured the electrical potential of the biological cell. A given of animal biology is that an electrical impulse will cause the animal cell to contract. A corollary is that a ring of cells will contract upon an electrical Impulse.
The premise of this essay is that the mechanical functioning of the animal body, i.e., peristaltic locomotion, alimentation, vascular and lymphatic circulation, is the result of the self-organized configuration of the blastula, the primary embryological structure, capable of the sequential contraction of rings of cells by a single electrical impulse like the lights on a theater marquee. A consequence of the axial contraction of rings of cells is the concurrent cause by mechanical peristalsis of the gut, locomotion of the body, vascular and lymphatic circulation.
The well-observed phenomenon of blastulagenesis describes the blastula as the geometrical consequence of serial cell division of the oocytes as a spheroidal bilayer membrane paving a tense, inflated blastocoel. The blastocysts self-organize in circumferential bands, two of which are known to emerge as the pectoral and pelvic girdles observed in the posterior, or torso, of the blastula.
The observation of the axial subdivision of the anterior, or head side of the blastula, completes the model of a blastula comprising axial banded girdles from pole to pole. An electrical impulse traveling axially will use alimentary peristalsis and peristaltic locomotion in the configuration assumed by the developing blastula, including the catastrophic disorientation of gastrulation, the second notable embryological event. The heartbeat is the result of vascular peristalsis in the well-known mechanically-caused kink in the primitive ventral artery.
A fundamental influence in the origin of biodiversity is the difference in geometrical consequences of the development by differences in the shape of the blastula, that may range from spherical, ovoidal, to cylindrical. These, respectively, are the geometrical morphogens of the radiata, vertebrata, and arthropoda.
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The creation question has obsessed humanity throughout history and plays a major role in theology and geopolitics. The problem occupies thousands of biologists in hundreds of laboratories the world over. Biological creation theories appear regularly. Today the solution is sought in the theory of mechanobiology–that the embryo is self-organized by mechanical forces rather than by genetic codes or natural selection. None have been able to predict the forms of nature by a plausible model. This website presents a theory of the origin of biological form in a comprehensive accounting of virtually all plant and animal organisms in a vast library of illustrations, a few dozen of which are presented here.
It is relevant that this model is of elemental simplicity, demonstrated by clear, animated drawings, is void of chemical or mathematical references, and is easily understood by any biology student. If this model of embryo geometry proves correct, then biological development, anatomy, evolutionary biology, mechanobiology, and medicine will gain a useful investigative asset.