The earliest days after fertilization, once a sperm cell meets an egg, are shrouded in scientific mystery. The process of how a humble single cell becomes an organism fascinates scientists across ...

Researchers have gained new insights into the mechanism behind the spatial organization of DNA within the cells of early embryos. When an embryo is first formed after fertilization, each cell has the ...

You are the product of metamorphosis. During the third week of your embryonic existence, fateful genetic choices were made that began to transform a tiny ball of identical stem cells into a complex ...

A study published today in the journal Developmental Cell uncovers new insights into how the heart forms during the earliest stages of embryonic development. The research, led by scientists at the ...

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 ...

Chromosphaera perkinsii is a single-celled species discovered in 2017 in marine sediments around Hawaii. The first signs of its presence on Earth have been dated at over a billion years, well before ...

A new review from Genes and Diseases sheds light on the pivotal role of LINE-1 elements in preimplantation development and totipotency, revealing their essential contributions to early mammalian ...

The world is full of unusual unicellular organisms and microbes, many of which have not been discovered yet. In 2017, scientists identified a single-celled marine organism called Chromosphaera ...