In article <330a676e.37903907 at news.ucs.ubc.ca>,
Lance Corey <lance at neuro.pharmacology.ubc.ca> wrote:
>brians at interlog.com (Brian Scott) wrote:
>>>In article <33096943.1CD7 at Bris.ac.uk>,
>>Andrew Doherty <A.Doherty at Bris.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>> >long. Is the ostrich's egg really a single cell?!
>>>> >
>>>>>>>> Sure it is...isn't it? I mean, it's an ovum and if it's fertilized
>>>> it starts dividing right? Help me out here people! :-)
>>>>>>>> Brian
>>>>>>>Well, I'm not so sure an ostrich egg, as such, is a single cell. Surely
>>>the ostrich ovem is the cell, which becomes the egg i.e. produces the
>>>shell, yolk sac, albumin...etc. So the ostrich egg may only contain one
>>>cell, but is not itself that cell - I think - sort of - d'ya get what I
>>>mean? I'm not sure I do, but then I'm not an ostrich biologist!!!
>>>>>>According to _Molecular Biolog of the Cell_ by Alberts et al., bird's
>>eggs are single cells.
>>IMHO, I don't blieve that the whole egg is one cell; more likely, it is a
>cell surrounded by yolk and albumen.
>>Lance Corey
>lance at neuro.pharmacology.ubc.ca
I guess it depends on your definition of a cell. Alberts et al. say that
the yolk is contained within an organelle -- yolk granules -- within the
cell's cytoplasm. They don't say the ovum is a cell associated with an
external yolk-containing body.
Brian
--
Brian Scott | "In other studies you go as far as others have gone
brians at interlog.com | before you, and there is nothing more to know; but
M.Sc. student in | in scientific pursuit there is continual food for
Neurophysiology | discovery and wonder." - Victor Frankenstein
