Where do we come from? What is our family history? How were our bodies formed? When did our species evolve? What are the origins of the planet and the Universe? The answers to these questions—of the sort that children ask, time and again—have never been truly convincing. Perhaps for that reason, adults keep posing them, to the extent that they constitute the nucleus of a great deal of scientific, historical, linguistic, and literary research. From Genesis to Chicomóztoc, every culture has its founding myth, a legend that explains its birth. In this edition, the Revista de la Universidad de México wanted to give these questions free rein and apply them to different disciplines with scientific rigor, philosophical acuity, creativity, and a sense of humor. Here our readers will find an essay about the origin of the Universe written by José Edelstein, a theoretical physicist and talented scientific communicator, but also a detailed discourse on the geographical origin of humans and the genetic evolution of our species written by the Danish philosopher of science Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther. In a literary text, Martín Caparrós tells the story of his grandparents, and, owing to what he discovers about them, reaches a better understanding of his own identity. In “The Umbilical Line,” Marisol García Walls, an expert on family trees, makes a case for feminine lineage, which for centuries has been omitted from the history books. Benny Weiss Steider, a biomedical researcher, lays out a theory wherein cancer could be considered the origin of immortality. Meanwhile, Mariapia Lamberti tells us about the invention of love in Western poetry. Do not be fooled, friend and reader. You will not find answers here about the chicken and the egg. We know all too well that the more we find out about the origin, the greater and more insatiable our curiosity becomes. After immersing yourself in these texts, it will remain a mystery which one came first. Our hope is that after reading this dossier you will have become acquainted with a greater variety of eggs, and gotten to know—or, with any luck, understood—the hens a little better.
Imagen de portada: Dibujo de un fósil publicado en Système silurien du centre de la Bohême de Joachim Barrande