An incredible video showing a chicken embryo developing into a live chick inside an open egg has stunned the internet. The footage is old - originally shared in 2016 - and has been reposted on Twitter by the handle Medical Videos. It shows the entire 21-day process in fast forward until a chicken emerges from the broken egg. The video has received nearly 3 million views and about 32,000 likes. For many users, it was a hard-to-believe scene and they posted several emojis expressing shock.
Watch the video:
The clip starts with a man cracking an egg, dropping it into a plastic pouch, and incubating it until a baby chick emerges several days later.
According to an old CNBC article, the man was a Japanese student, who was seen using a syringe to inject something in the embryo at certain points.
Many users questioned the authenticity of the video, but E David Peebles, a professor of poultry science at Mississippi State University, told CNBC that the process is possible.
Professor Peebles added he saw something similar in a North Carolina State University.
Another article in The Daily Dot said this kind of process has been referred to in scientific literature dating back to at least 1971.
The Journal of Poultry Science described in an article in 2014 how a "shell-less" method for growing chickens from embryos could lead to research in "transgenic chickens, embryo manipulations, tissue engineering, and basic studies in regenerative medicine".
However, Professor Peebles said this process is not the sort of thing one would use in commercial chicken breeding, or in raising chickens for food.
He also said that it's not easy. "What they are doing in an artificial environment is providing a protective coating that is semi-permeable so that water can be lost and gases can be exchanged," the professor said.
