Breaking: chicken came before the egg.

[jefXfree]

Don't ask us why British researchers are spending their time trying to solve the age-old "who came first" conundrum, but apparently solve it they have done. Lab dwellers from the universities of Sheffield and Warwick share the distinction of identifying the particular effects of a particular protein -- ovocleidin-17, found only in chickens' ovaries -- on the development of the egg's shell. It would seem that without OC-17 converting calcium carbonate into calcite crystals, one couldn't have an eggshell, meaning that the chicken and its special protein powers had to have developed first. How the world's going to react to having one of its favorite clichés wrestled away has yet to be determined.

Update: Seems like we didn't make it clear enough that these findings relate specifically to chicken eggs. We're well aware that dinosaurs have plenty of prior art on chickens when it comes to laying shelled embryo chambers.

(Engadget)

 

[Illiciter]

oh thank goodness.. I was afraid I'd have to die without knowing the answer.

 

[Horhay]

Does this mean we have to remove this question from the unresolvable mysteries?!

 

[MacDaddyOJack]

I'm still not sold....

What if the first chicken was born from a mutation inside some other species egg... then that egg still came first and now there was just an animal that can make that protein

 

[Horhay]

but scientist have solved the riddle!

 

[Illiciter]

I'm still not sold....

What if the first chicken was born from a mutation inside some other species egg... then that egg still came first and now there was just an animal that can make that protein

animal still had to exist, even though it was a mutant, to create the eggshell.

 

[MacDaddyOJack]

Well I was just arguing that the egg could have come first if it was a mutation of something else.

Clearly the debate still lives on!

 

[jefXfree]

Well I was just arguing that the egg could have come first if it was a mutation of something else.

Clearly the debate still lives on!

It's not possible for the debate to live on, it's been solved. They said this only solves the problem for the CHICKEN not what came first the animal or the egg.

The CHICKEN had to come first. Anything before that they didn't claim to answer.

 

[Horhay]

It lives on Jef!! It lives on....