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By Vincent FLEURY, Director of Research CNRS Université Paris Diderot, Laboratoire Matière et Systèmes Complexes. In recent years, an avalanche of experimental work, based on in vivo cinematography of embryonic development, has demonstrated the important role played by physical forces during the development of vertebrates. Contrary to what genetics might lead us to believe, the general plans for the formation of animals, such as the plan of quadruped vertebrates, are not arbitrary, and present a certain number of traits constrained by the laws of physics. These laws act at all scales. A paradigm shift is beginning to emerge, according to which the observed forms could obey simple and recurring morphogenetic patterns, based on a limited number of physical factors (rules of symmetry, law of elasticity, etc.). How far can we push physical reasoning? Can we predict the existence of animals or plants similar to those observed on Earth, on other planets? What part of human development is constrained, perhaps to the point of being inevitable, over relatively long periods of time? The presentation will be illustrated by numerous HD films obtained in vivo by digital imaging techniques commonly used in laboratories today, which allow the key stages of development to be followed, sometimes by following all the cells in motion. These films show almost the entire development of a typical vertebrate such as those used in the laboratory (chicken, fish, frog).