Check out the hottest papers in developmental biology and related fields, as ranked by F1000

From the very moment of conception, calcium plays a pivotal role in fetal development. It rushes in as a wave around the egg to herald the sperm's arrival, binding to proteins that help kick off the whole developmental process. From this first influx, calcium continues to play a critical role in how the body's cells respond to outside signals. Calcium tells muscles to contract and nerves to release neurotransmitters, and is at least part of the signal that helps people form and retain memories.

Associate Professor, Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder. Age: 43

From detecting gravity and the Earth’s magnetic field to feeling heat and the movement of water around them, animals can do more than just see, smell, touch, taste, and hear.

Sequencing and gene-editing advances make tracing a cell’s journey throughout development easier than ever.

The MacArthur Foundation today announced the recipients of its 2008 MacArthur Fellows (a.k.a. Genius Awards): Among the 25 winners, who will receive $500,000 over the next five years, four were life scientists. Here's the line-up: linkurl:Kirsten Bomblies,;http://www.weigelworld.org/members/kirstenb a plant evolutionary geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, studies genetic incompatibility in Arabidopsis as a model for the development of new plant species in shared

Researchers used the genome-editing technology to analyze the development of mouse tissues.

A handful of new studies moves the needle toward a consensus on the long-disputed question of whether insect wings evolved from legs or from the body wall, but the devil is in the details.

Glial cells were once considered neurons’ supporting actors, but new methods and model organisms are revealing their true importance in brain function.

FEATUREThe Ecology of Tumors Stem cells for brain cancer BY PETER B. DIRKSNeural stem cell biology took off in 1992 when Brent Reynolds and Samuel Weiss, working at the University of Calgary, discovered that culturing mammalian brain cells in serum-free conditions (in EGF and bFGF), yielded clonally derived colonies of undifferentiated neural cells (neurospheres). This culture system demonstrated that cells within these colonies showed cardinal pr