In the Womb
National Geographic Channel reveals the latest findings in fetal development.
Mother Nature usually intends the
womb to be a hospitable environment
where life can flourish and
grow without problems before birth. But what if you are one of nature's unparalleled killing
machines ? National Geographic Channel's In the Womb: Extreme
Animals tells the story of how menacing sharks
begin to develop their snouts that
can eventually track prey from
up to five kilometers away. In what scientists call
embryonic
cannibalism, sand sharks use predatory instincts and
their teeth to hunt down and
kill siblings while
still inside the womb. This means that only the strongest of many
embryos will
actually make it into the outside world.
Daphne and Barbara are two
women who didn't know each other for 40 years, but are now realizing how
coincidental their lives
have actually been. At the age of 14, both women left school.
In
their twenties, Daphne and Barbara got married to childhood sweethearts
and even suffered miscarriages at
the same age. When they met for the first time, they were wearing nearly identical clothing.
This strange set of coincidences is
made all
the more bizarre when
National Geographic Channel reveals that Daphne and Barbara are
identical
twins that were
separated at birth. They
have had no contact with each
other for 40 years, were raised by very different families, but are
strikingly similar
in manner and
actions. The series, In the Womb:
Identical Twins, tries to explain one of reproductive science's
greatest mysteries — the question of nature versus
nurture.
It's not surprising that two
people split
from the same fertilized egg retain a
close physical appearance, but how far does the influence of genes reach beyond
physical looks? National Geographic Channel unravels some
of the perplexing riddles
of Mother Nature while using state-of-the-art 4-D
ultrasounds as
well as high definition
visual effects with In
the Womb: Identical Twins. |