In order for vertebrate embryos to develop their body axes, they require what is known as an embryonic signaling center. This ...

Why humans have a philtrum, the groove above your lip, explained by an evolutionary biologist — from embryonic face-building to vestigial anatomy.

Like all complex organisms, every human originates from a single cell that multiplies through countless cell divisions. Thousands of cells coordinate, move and exert mechanical forces on each other as ...

By tracking neural crest cells in catshark embryos, researchers discovered that the molecular toolkit behind face-building is ...

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 ...

During mammalian development, the fertilized egg gives rise not only to the embryo, which becomes the born individual, but also to distinct extraembryonic tissues that are intimately juxtaposed to it, ...

Men have nipples because embryos are sexually neutral for their first six weeks. Here's the developmental blueprint behind ...

Together with his student Hilde Mangold, the biologist Hans Spemann discovered the so-called »organiser« during embryonic development in 1924. In ...