(NAG: Oxford, UK) --  When researchers at the University of Warwick and the University of Sheffield decided to use the UK’s national academic supercomputer HECToR to study a problem in eggshell formation, they made use of NAG HPC software engineering expertise. The results they obtained may also give a partial answer to the age-old question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

The answer to the question seems to be chicken—at least for one particular protein.

Researchers knew that a chicken eggshell protein called ovocledidin-17 (OC-17) must play some role in eggshell formation. The protein is found only in the mineral region of the egg (the hard part of the shell), and laboratory results showed that it appeared to influence the transformation of calcium carbonate into calcite crystals. How this process could be used to form an actual eggshell remained unclear.

 …