You are now at the 1 cell stage and your single cell has already begun its long journey to becoming an adult.

Your egg is divided into the animal pole at the top and a vegetal pole at the bottom. Here, special proteins and a type of single-stranded DNA called maternal RNA from your mother has started to be collected.

Scientific Instruments

Whipple Museum

The Whipple Museum is a treasure trove of historical scientific instruments used throughout history to make some of the most fundamental discoveries that are so important to today's world.

The collection was donated by Robert Whipple, a scientific instrument salesman, in 1944. Robert worked for Francis Darwin - son of Charles Darwin, whose Theory of Evolution is a ground point in biological research today.

Instruments Now

We use lots of different tools at the Gurdon Institute to carry out our experiments every day. These range from super computers to make predictions, high resolution microscopes to take some amazing close up images and even paintbrushes - essential for counting sleepy flies!

Riddles

  • ‘Learn for free

    without a fee!’

    An old doctor declared.

    But what surname had he?

  • Have a look for the sign that tells you more about Free School Lane. What surname did the man who donated the funds to set up the school have?

*Remember to start your answer with a Capital letter. You’ll find this answer on the street!

“There seems to be one quality of mind which seems to be of special and extreme advantage in leading him to make discoveries. It was the power of never letting exceptions go unnoticed.”

— Francis Darwin, In Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of his Published Letters (1908).