This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. As an evolutionary biologist whose career ...

When sperm meets egg, the start of life is not quiet. Under a special microscope, researchers have watched a tiny light show at fertilization. They see a microscopic flash at fertilization, a burst of ...

Human bodies have to be built from a single egg cell that's fertilized by a sperm cell. Many rounds of cell division occur as the body is developing, and it seems that there are plenty of chances for ...

Multiple genetic changes can occur before or early after conception, a new study describes. The researchers looked at a type of genetic change called copy number variants, which refers to the number ...

A stunning explosion of zinc fireworks occurs when a human egg is activated by a sperm enzyme, and the size of these 'sparks' is a direct measure of the quality of the egg and its ability to develop ...