Menstruation Matters
Emily Santora
Periods are a natural, normal part of life, and many people around the world experience them. So let’s talk about why and how they happen.
the egg after fertilization and before it has developed into a recognizable form.
Getting to Know the Germ Layers
Claudia Nunez-Eddy
Risa Aria Schnebly
Almost all life forms start out as small cells, but how do they grow into entire animals? Read about the first step here: when cells in an embryo form germ layers that give rise to every organ and tissue in the body.
Animal Development & Growth
The way your body works now is not the way it has always worked. Think about it—today, your voice might be a little deeper, you might be a little taller, and you might even think differently than you did just a few years ago. This process of how an organism changes through time is called development.
Being able to choose which people we interact with seems to affect how happy we are and how well we do our jobs. Is this true in other species? Learn how choosing a mate affects the success of zebra finches in making and raising young.
Also in: Français
Malika Ihle
Egg Beaters
Part of making a mechanistic prediction involves gathering information about different life stages. But how would you find out if a developing animal is feeling too hot or too cold? If the animal was in a shelled egg, would you knock on its shell and hope for a response? Or would you just assume that it can handle any temperature? Biologists are trying to figure out how to measure what temperatures developing animals can tolerate.
Fish use their two fins and a tail to glide through the ocean, but some fish like the mudskipper use their fins for flopping across land too. Scientists are investigating how fish evolved limbs to walk on dry land.
Daniel Maas
Seed Anatomy
Seeing Seeds Close-up - These pictures are of a pea seed
| Here you can see, I've removed the seed coat and split the seed in half. One half has the embryo and some of the stored food, and the other half holds the rest of the stored food. |
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This picture is of the half of the seed that has the embryo. |
Time Traveling Plants
Elena Ortiz
Every year billions of babies are dried and buried, not to be unburied for weeks, months, years or even decades. Don't worry, these are not babies like your little brother or sister, these are baby plants, or as you might call them, seeds. Why would a mom do such a thing?
Also in: Français | Español
The Tale of the Two-Headed Lampropeltis getula californiae
CJ Kazilek
A Common Kingsnake, Lampropeltis getula californiae, but this snake was anything but common. From the title of our story, you may have guessed that our snake, or maybe we should call it snakes, had two heads.