Researchers stained the cells to track them as they moved and grew. They focused on a group of cells known as the facial prominences in embryos that produce the physical structures of the face. ![]() Higashiyama and his colleagues in the laboratory of Professor Hiroki Kurihara designed experiments to track facial development in embryos of different species, including birds (chickens), reptiles (geckos) and mammals (mice). The research, recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to examine the evolution of facial structure using cellular studies comparing multiple embryos of multiple species. It's very easy to think that the bones are the same, but now we can study embryos and track cellular development to study these bones in much greater detail," explained postdoctoral researcher Hiroki Higashiyama, who studies evolutionary development at the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine. "Existing fossils of four-legged animals, both reptilian and mammalian ancestors, have the same number of upper jaw bones. Even though mammals have a unique nose, the evolution of this structure has remained unknown. ![]() The traditional scientific understanding of facial evolution is that both mammalian and reptilian jaws develop in almost the same way.
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