It is humbling to realize that we humans share about 70% of our genes with zebrafish. There are also a whole host of other similarities that make these small transparent fish an ideal animal model for ...

Female mammals are born with all the egg cells they will ever have in their ovaries. Some of these cells therefore live for a long time – and must remain functional throughout this period. Experiments ...

When a woman becomes pregnant, the outcome of that pregnancy depends on many things — including a crucial event that happened ...

Who hasn't seen it before: the view through the microscope in which a sperm penetrates an egg cell and fertilizes it. This fundamental step in procreation happens dynamically and seemingly without ...

After fertilisation, the egg cell (purple) releases zinc ions (blue dots), which changes the shape of the green protein on the surface of a sperm. As a result, the sperm can no longer dock to the egg ...