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, ...

Studying the early development of human embryos is challenging due to ethical constraints and technical difficulties. Therefore, animal models are often used to understand the biological processes ...

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, ...

All animals have evolved thanks to the fact that certain viruses infected primitive organisms hundreds of millions of years ago. Viral genetic material was integrated into the genome of the first ...

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 ...

An international team of experts in embryology and bioethics has published the first white paper on the use of embryonic ...

Embryonic development is one of the most dynamic biological processes in nature. Cells and tissues organize and reorganize ...

Embryo development in livestock underpins global food security and genetic improvement programmes. From the first mitotic divisions in the zygote to the formation of the blastocyst, the timing, ...

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 ...