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 ...

Is there only one optimal configuration an organism can reach during evolution? Is there a single formula that describes the trajectory towards the optimum? And can we 'derive' it in a purely ...

Animal embryos go through a series of characteristic developmental stages on their journey from a fertilized egg cell to a functional organism. This biological process is largely genetically ...

Researchers have developed a theoretical framework that can reproduce and predict the patterns associated with gastrulation in a chicken embryo. Gastrulation is one of the most important phases in ...

A new study by Prof. Ariel Chipman of The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem provides a novel model for understanding the development and evolution of ...

One of the biggest quests in biology is understanding how every cell in an animal's body carries an identical genome yet still gives rise to a kaleidoscope of different cell types and tissues. A ...

Have you ever looked at a human embryo and thought, “That kind of looks like a fish”? If you haven’t, you might be surprised to learn that, in a way, we all begin our lives like this. The idea that ...

The pallium is the brain region where the neocortex forms in mammals, the part responsible for cognitive and complex functions that most distinguishes humans from other species. The pallium has ...

Despite differences in shape and size all insects are characterized by a body organization that includes three units: a head, thorax and abdomen (panels A-B). In contrast all spiders (and other ...