Humans do not have tails, but do we have “what it takes” for a tail? Hens don’t have teeth, but they have the genes for it. With atavism, it is as if our genomes serve as archives of our evolutionary ...

Most of what scientists know about face development comes from studies in bony vertebrates such as mice, chickens, and zebrafish. However, their evolutionary counterparts, cartilaginous fishes, have ...

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, ...

Birds and mammals use the same genes to build their face, but deploy them differently in time and space. Cells and evolutionary change: The undifferentiated facial mesenchyme emerges as an essential ...

Mouse (left) and chicken (right) during development. Both species use conserved signaling pathways to form the craniofacial ...

A discovery upends decades of assumptions regarding DNA replication. The study show that DNA replication in early embryos is different from what past research has taught, and includes a period of ...

Metabolism does more than fuel embryos—it sets their developmental rhythm. EMBL researchers found that a sugar molecule, FBP, controls the pace of spine formation, suggesting metabolism may act as a ...

Shapes of beaks and snouts come in an extraordinary range of forms, reflecting adaptations to different lifestyles and ...