"It had long been suspected that the egg came first, but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first," Sheffield University's Dr Colin Freeman, according to a report in the Metro.
Researchers from Scotland and England used a supercomputer called HECToR to look in such detail at a chicken eggshell that they were able to determine the vital role of a protein used to kick-start the egg's formation.
That protein is only found, wait for it... inside a chicken.
Freeman, who worked on HECToR with counterparts at Edinburgh's Warwick University, said the protein had been identified earlier by scientists and was known to be linked to egg formation, "but by examining it closely we have been able to see how it controls the process," he added, describing it as a catalyst.
