Behind the paper stories
Every paper has a story behind it, and we regularly commission scientists to tell theirs. In this collection you’ll discover the highs and the lows, the chance encounters and life changing discoveries from the breadth of developmental biology and stem cell research.
Recent posts
A journey towards understanding the embryo – maternal vasculature interactions during implantation
Posted by Niraimathi Govindasamy, on 27 March 2022
Niraimathi Govindasamy from the Bedzhov lab, takes us through the story behind their paper on the interactions between the embryo and maternal vasculature.Hanging by a hair: the life of a semi-aquatic bug.
Posted by Cédric Finet, on 23 February 2022
A evo-devo research story from Cédric Finet asking why are water striders so hairy.The order of discovery is not the order of the figures
Posted by Akihiro Kaneshige, on 9 February 2022
Read the story behind the paper with Akihiro KaneshigeRetinal ganglion cell survival after optic nerve injury – what can we learn from the zebrafish?
Posted by Jeff Gross, on 14 December 2021
Read the story behind the paper with Jeff GrossThe making of.. human blastoids
Posted by Alok Javali, on 9 December 2021
In our recently published paper1, we show that human stem cells self-organize into blastocyst-like structures, which we term blastoids based on 4 criteria. Because blastoids can be generated in large …Shining a Light on Adult Neural Stem Cells
Posted by Alina Marymonchyk, on 2 October 2021
Adult Neural Stem Cells (NSCs) have a remarkable capacity to produce new neurons and glia cells that integrate into pre-existing neural networks. Adult NSCs are found in all mammals, including humans, giving us hope of using the pool of adult …How exploring single cell dynamics in the early embryo revealed a protective system based on mechanical cell cooperation
Posted by Esteban Hoijman, on 15 July 2021
Esteban Hoijman and Verena Ruprecht describe how they found a phagocytic role for epithelial cells in early embryosFrom local communication to global pattern recovery: spatio-temporal scales in segmentation clock and scientists
Posted by Koichiro Uriu, on 30 June 2021
Koichiro Uriu, Bo-Kai Liao, Andrew Oates and Luis Morelli on the segmentation clock
“If you notice something unusual in your experiments, don’t just throw it away!”
Do you have a story to tell? We can give comments on drafts and any level of editing you want, and we particularly encourage contributions from researchers for whom English is not their first language.
Writing tips and ideas
Check out our page for writing tips for Node bloggers. We also have a mailing list for occasional writing ideas — simply update your email preferences once you’ve registered an account with us.
Our full archive going back to 2010 is filterable by category, tag and date.