4 July 2012
Your pretty face wasn't always so pretty: the
first animation of a face forming in the womb reveals how different features
morph during development.
The time-lapse, produced for the BBC series Inside
the Human Body, is based on human embryo scans captured between 1 and 3
months after conception, the period during which a face develops. Virtual
sculptures were created at different stages, then combined by mapping hundreds
of points to corresponding dots on the other models. "It was a nightmare
for structures like the nose and palate, which didn't exist for most of the
animation," says David Barker, the graphics researcher on the production.
"Their formation is a complicated ballet of growth and fusion of moving
plates of tissue."
A close look at the animation reveals that a face
forms from three main features that rotate into place, meeting at the philtrum,
the groove above the top lip. The transformation occurs with very precise
timing and delays can result in a cleft lip or palate.
For more intriguing views of the body, watch Inside
the Human Body, which will be airing in the UK and Ireland on 16 July at
9 pm as part of a month
of science programmes on Eden TV.
If you enjoyed this video, you might like to see the
first MRI movie of a baby's birth or watch an
incubator spy on a developing embryo.
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