New research is underway to decipher a fascinating biological puzzle—how some animals can naturally discard more than half of their genetic information during embryonic development. This radical ...

In the earliest hours after fertilization, an embryo takes its first steps toward becoming a living organism by shedding maternal control and activating its own genetic program. This critical process, ...

A cell of the ichthyosporean C. perkinsii showing distinct signs of polarity, with clear cortical localization of the nucleus before the first cleavage. Microtubules are shown in magenta, DNA in blue, ...

The annual killifish lives in regions with extreme drought. A research group now reports that the early embryogenesis of killifish diverges from that of other species. Unlike other fish, their body ...

Using CRISPR-based engineering methods to prompt stem cells to organize into embryo-like structures, scientists were able to create 'programmable' cellular models of embryos without ever experimenting ...

At least 8% of the human genome is genetic material from viruses. It was considered ‘junk DNA’ until recently, but its role in human development is now known to be essential Researchers at the Spanish ...

Kangaroos are the iconic Australian animals that are famous for their ability to carry their young around in a pouch on their ...

Descriptions of the embryo go back at least to the time of Aristotle, but it has only been since the late 19 th century and early 20 th century that advances in experimental approaches allowed ...

From salamanders regrowing lost limbs to sea slugs rebuilding their bodies from a severed head, the natural world is full of ...

For several years, researchers studied human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) to understand the unique features of these pluripotent cells, but on their own, they poorly resembled the complex structures ...