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 ...

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 ...

Seals give birth only when conditions are right. After mating, a female seal can delay implantation of the embryo in the ...

Researchers have discovered a key transition in early embryonic development is facilitated by decreasing levels of a viral protein inserted into the DNA of our early animal ancestors. Researchers at ...

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 ...

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 ...

Despite being an essential developmental process, the understanding of human embryonic genome activation is limited, owing to the lack of in vitro cell models and ethical concerns. To advance ...

A research team showed that, contrary to current models, one early embryonic cell dominates lineages that will become the fetus. “They are not identical,” said Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a ...