What are the first steps that chart the path for a cell to become a blood cell, neuron cell, or pigment cell? Scientists have developed increasingly powerful tools to track those changes, but one ...

With today's advanced microscopes, scientists can capture videos of entire embryos developing in real time. But there's a catch: turning those breathtaking images into clean, accurate trajectories of ...

During early development, tissues and organs begin to form through the shifting, splitting, and growing of many thousands of cells. A team of researchers headed by MIT engineers has now developed a ...

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 ...

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 ...

Labs around the world are trying to turn cells into autobiographers, tracking their own development from embryos to adults. By Carl Zimmer Shortly after conception, a fertilized egg divides, becoming ...

Understanding how these cells develop and function is like decoding a complex puzzle. "By perfecting stem cell methods that mimic the development of the normal blood stem cells found in our bodies we ...

Researchers have mapped variation in human stem cells that explains how cells of an individual may shape a unique 'developmental dance' at the molecular level, thereby controlling how the brain and ...