For a new plant to grow from a seed, cells need to divide numerous times. Daughter cells can each take on different tasks and sometimes vary in size. How plants determine the plane of cell division in ...

When cells divide, microtubules – a dynamic network of protein filaments – form a mitotic spindle that draws the chromosomes apart and arranges them into two daughter cells. Here, plants and animals ...

Animals, from worms and sponges to jellyfish and whales, contain anywhere from a few thousand to tens of trillions of nearly genetically identical cells. Depending on the organism, these cells arrange ...

How did the characteristic pattern of embryonic cell divisions during animal development evolve? Analysis of the multicellular development of an organism related to animals now provides some answers.