A lot happens in the first month of human embryo development as a single cell morphs into multitudes. Yet despite its significance, this period is basically a “black box” to researchers, says stem ...

The new platform's ethically grounded approach promises to reveal much about how human embryos form during the earliest stages of pregnancy. It's one of life's most defining moments -- that crucial ...

University of Cambridge scientists have used human stem cells to create three-dimensional embryo-like structures that replicate certain aspects of very early human development—including the production ...

Scientists are exploring ways to mimic the origins of human life without two fundamental components: sperm and egg. They are coaxing clusters of stem cells – programmable cells that can transform into ...

During embryonic stem cell (ESC) development, pluripotent stem cells transition from a naïve state into a primed state before they take their first steps toward a lineage commitment. Jacob Hanna, a ...

Ancient viruses are embedded everywhere in the human genome. Estimates range, but it's thought that about eight percent of the human genome could be made up of these ancient retroviruses, which are ...

Scientists have for the first time ever filmed a crucial step that leads to new human life – cracking open a 'black box' of early development, and potentially helping with fertility treatments. Every ...

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 ...

What do the earliest stages of a pregnancy look like? Embryonic development has been extensively studied, but most of our knowledge of the earliest stages of a growing baby come from stationary ...

Researchers have developed a new stem cell model of the mature human amniotic sac, which replicates development of the tissues supporting the embryo from two to four weeks after fertilization. This is ...

The team observed the emergence of the three-dimensional embryo-like structures under a microscope in the lab. These started producing blood (seen here in red) after around two weeks of development - ...