Learn how mapping gene-control switches in an ancient sea anemone reveals how identical DNA can produce many different cell ...

Cnidarians lack true mesoderm, in the sense of a third germ layer that arises as a direct result of gastrulation. However, at the molecular level, muscle development in the medusa of the hydrozoan ...

One ocean-dwelling creature found in many tropic waters is known to be able to reserve its own life cycle, cheating death.

The recent Invertebrate Wars reminded me of spectacular, but often ignored, group of gastropods. The parasites! This is a group that I have totally geeked out on in the past. In my previous work I ...

A new study into the neurons found in the earliest-diverging animal lineages reveals key clues about the form of the most ancestral nervous system, and how neurons first evolved. Neurons, the ...

Ancient Immunoglobulin Genes Help Cnidarians Decide to Fight or Fuse Immunoglobulin genes might have evolved much earlier than previously expected, perhaps even in the common ancestor of Cnidarians ...

Left, a hydra stained in blue where the light-sensitive opsin gene is expressed. Right, two tentacle bulbs showing the arrangement of neurons and stinging cells (red), muscle fibers (green) and cell ...

I ve got an article in today s New York Times about jellyfish and their kin known as cnidarians. Cnidarians look pretty simple, which helped earn them a reputation as simple and primitive compared to ...

Our brains are filled with lots of specialized structures that do things like process visual information, handle memories, or interpret language. One of the ways we try to understand what a brain is ...