What is a Zygote?
A zygote is a single cell which has formed as the result of the merging of an egg cell and a sperm cell. In other words, it’s a fertilized egg, with the potential to develop into a living organism. The formation of a zygote represents the moment at which conception occurs, making it an important landmark in the process of fetal development from an ethical, legal, and moral standpoint as well as a scientific one. The term “zygote” means “yoked together” in Greek, reflecting the fact that the cell contains genetic material from both parents, brought together for the first time to create a complete diploid cell. If all goes well, the zygote will undergo cleavage, dividing and reproducing itself to create a small cluster of cells known as a blastocyst. The development of the blastocyst takes around five days from the moment of conception in humans. In the case of twins, the twins may be monozygotic, or dizygotic twins. Monozygotic twins are produced from the same zygote, which means that e
