A proposed solution to one of the great mysteries of science is announced in the publication of Embryo Geometry by chemist and biologist Stuart Pivar, with illustrations by molecular biologist Peter Sheesley. The origin of the shapes and forms of the plant and animal body, long suspected to be encoded in the DNA and driven by natural selection, is demonstrated to derive instead from simple geometrical patterns formed by the dividing embryonic egg cells. We look on the primal symmetry of natural forms with wonder, in ignorance of their cause. This book reveals the step-by-step development of the embryo from a single cell by the formation and deformation of the bands of cells called the blastula—the barcode for the body. The many drawings also depict the topological origin of the regular skin patterns of birds, reptiles, fish and quadrupeds. These are described in the two hundred pages of the book.
The geometrical algorithm that guides the formation of the embryo is now described in mechanical drawings that show the path from the egg cell to the adult plant and animal.