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GUARDIAN | Scientists solve eggshell mystery of how chicks hatch

Published: 3 April 2018

It’s been a tough one to crack, but scientists say they have zoomed in, to an unprecedented degree, on the structure of shells surrounding chicken embryos, revealing how they change to allow young birds to hatch. […] “Everybody thinks eggshells are fragile – [when] we’re careful, we ‘walk on eggshells’ – but in fact, for their thinness they are extremely strong, harder than some metals,” said Prof Marc McKee, a coauthor of the study from McGill University in Canada. “We are really understanding now at the almost molecular scale how an eggshell is assembled and how it dissolves.”

The Guardian, Newsweek, Nature

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