It is Sunday and a day for me to enlighten my reading audience into some mysteries of life and thought….I try to avoid the mundane boredom that comes with US politics on the weekends.

Now it is time to expand the mind….throughout the ages man has asked the difficult questions….what is life?  What is love?  Where are we in the universe?

But in all that time there has been one gnawing question that no answer has been formulated…..which came first the chicken or the egg?

Now an answer has been presented…..

Was it the egg and then the chicken? Or the chicken and then the egg? Well, a group of scientists have suggested a new theory as to eggs-actly which came first.

Before we reached an age where we had so many other deliberations to worry about – taxes, electricity bills and what we’re actually going to do with the rest of our lives – there was nothing better than the biggest questions on our minds being what we would have for dinner, when our next playdate was or what came first – the chicken or the egg.

So, a team at the UK‘s University of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences decided to find out once and for all.

Some argue the eggs came first – laid by dinosaur ancestors of the fluffy, squawky bird that funds establishments such as KFC. Others have argued a chicken popped out of nowhere and then proceeded to lay an egg.

And in a study, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, a team of scientists decided to take 51 fossil species and 29 living species and split them into two categories for examination: oviparous (laying hard or soft shelled eggs) and viviparous (giving birth to live young – like us humans do).

The study found the early reptilian ancestors of chickens were viviparous – they gave birth to live animals and didn’t lay eggs.

And while both the teams at Bristol and Nanjing University in China noted that animals laying hard-shelled eggs have been one of the greatest innovations, this research is particularly noteworthy.

The team explained the research implies extended embryo retention (when the mother retains their young before birthing) was the ultimate protection for this group of animals in particular – so basically, way back then, birthing a live chicken was safer than laying an egg.

https://www.unilad.com/news/what-came-first-chicken-egg-science-debate-304414-20240913

So did that paper truly give a definitive answer to which came first?

Your input would be welcomed.

That is my Sunday offering I hope you were entertained and/or educated….go out and have a wonderful Autumn day and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”