On July 11, Wills Eye Institute ophthalmologist Carl Regillo delicately placed 100,000 cells beneath the retina of 52-year-old Maurie Hill’s left eye…
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post Human Embryonic Stem Cells Finally Reach Clinical Trials: Maurie’s StoryRead more
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post How the Human Lost Its TailRead more
In 1902’s Just So Stories for Little Children, British author Rudyard Kipling famously explained curiosities of the animal kingdom: How the Leopard…
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post 17 Timepoints When a Human Life Begins: 2024 Version in the Wake of the Alabama RulingRead more
I wish that I could stop reposting this essay – I do so whenever limitations on women’s reproductive rights become ever more…
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post Experiments Reveal the Early Human Embryo, with Implications for Infertility and Early Pregnancy LossRead more
Several recent reports are filling in the gaps of what we know about the earliest days and weeks of human prenatal development…
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post Y Chromosome Loss Linked to Hiked Heart Disease Risk: The Human Y Isn’t Useless After AllRead more
I’ve never been fond of the human Y chromosome. Yes, the all-important SRY gene sets the early embryo on a path towards…
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post 17 Timepoints When a Human Life Might Begin, 2022 VersionRead more
I originally published When Does a Human Life Begin? 17 Timepoints here at DNA Science in 2013. My intent was to inform…
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post Leaping Lizards Regenerate Limbs, Thanks to CRISPR and Stem CellsRead more
I’ve admired the cockroach’s ability to regrow lost legs since learning about them while working on my PhD in developmental genetics ages…
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post Gastruloids Stand In for Early Human EmbryosRead more
Remember human embryonic stem (hES) cells? We don’t hear much about them anymore. And so I was surprised to see an application…
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post Genetic Choreography of the Developing Human EmbryoRead more
Years ago, when I was teaching at a state university, I had the privilege to show real human embryos and fetuses to…
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post Leroy Stevens: Fairwell to The Unsung Hero of Stem Cell ResearchRead more
Yesterday a Google Alert popped up with a blast from my past, an obituary for Jackson Lab researcher Leroy C. Stevens. It quoted…
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post When Does a Human Life Begin? 17 TimepointsRead more
I rerun this most-read post about when human life begins every time that the discussion resurges, which is usually in the shadow…
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post 10 Reasons Why Growing A Human Brain-in-a-Dish is TerrificRead more
“My brain! It’s my second favorite organ!” cried an aghast Woody Allen as his time-traveling character in 1973’s Sleeper, Miles Monroe, was…