Science Common Sense

1433 - How do multicellular organisms form different types of cells from fertilized eggs.

Imagine you have a big ball of clay, and from that one ball, you can make many different shapes like a dog, house, or car. Similarly, a fertilized egg is like that ball of clay, and it can grow into many different types of cells to form a living being.

The process is called differentiation. Here's how it works:

1. Inside the fertilized egg, there's a blueprint called DNA that contains all the instructions to make the living being.
2. As the egg grows, it divides many times into more cells.
3. Each time it divides, the cells start to read the instructions in the DNA to figure out what type of cell they should become (like a brain cell or a muscle cell).
4. The cells then start to change and develop into their specific type.
5. They might grow different shapes, sizes, or structures that help them do their job.
6. Eventually, these different types of cells come together to form the different parts of the body, like skin, muscles, or bones.

It's like how you follow a recipe to make different desserts, like cakes or cookies. The fertilized egg follows the DNA instructions to "bake" different types of cells to form the whole living being.