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 ...

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

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 ...

One major division of the kingdom Animalia is Cnidarians (animals built around a central point) and bilaterians (animals with bilateral symmetry), which includes us humans. A new study found that the ...

The cnidocytes -- or stinging cells -- that are characteristic of sea anemones, hydrae, corals and jellyfish, and make us careful of our feet while wading in the ocean, are also an excellent model for ...

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 ...