How Are We Made?    

      We know how glass is made...how carpet is woven...
how steel is forged. 

   But, how were we made? David wrote in Psalm 139 that God knitted him together in his mother's womb. He admitted to his Creator, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." 

   The process of embryonic cells knitting into tissues and organs is mystifying, but scientists at the Univ. of California say they have found the key.

   "In a nutshell," the lead researcher wrote, "we discovered a physical mechanism that cells use to mold embryonic tissues into their (three dimensional) shapes." In the study, published in the journal Nature, researchers observed the embryonic development of zebrafish, which grow similar to human embryos.  

   They saw that cells coordinate by exchanging biochemical signals.

   Some cells either latch onto or push away from certain other cells, forming organs such as eyes, lungs and heart. Cells in certain locations have higher activity than others.

    When cells push and tug at one another, heat builds up, which melts foamy tissue into a liquid. When the liquid cools down and begins to solidify again, it does so in a controlled manner to form the organ shape. Researchers likened this to the process of glass molding or 3-D printing. 

   This discovery is far more than a curiosity. Scientists hope to engineer better 3-D organs or understand how cancerous tumors form and invade surrounding tissues. 

   They already know that cancer is a switch from solid-like tissue state to a fluid-like state. They hope to learn more about this switch, and develop ways to combat it. 

   Amazing as this discovery is, imagine our Creator making the first two humans - fully grown! 

      Jimmy