The world has now learned of a surprising scientific advance: so-called “synthetic embryos.” Their arrival promises to reveal to medicine previously hidden glimpses into problems of early pregnancy.

Some newly reported clumps of cells growing in lab dishes have been hailed as the closest things to human embryos that scientists have ever made in the lab. These entities are human embryo models — ...

Four teams have coaxed human stem cells to organize themselves into embryo-like forms. The advance could shed light on fertility. By Carl Zimmer In its first week, a fertilized human egg develops into ...

Scientists have created a stem cell-derived model of the human embryo in the lab by reprogramming human stem cells. The breakthrough could help research into genetic disorders and in understanding why ...

Megan Molteni reports on discoveries from the frontiers of genomic medicine, neuroscience, and reproductive tech. She joined STAT in 2021 after covering health and science at WIRED. You can reach ...

You'd think we'd know everything there is to know about sexual reproduction. But as it turns out, there are still quite a few ...

Despite the fact that we all start out as an egg cell in one of our mother's ovaries, these human reproductive organs are surprisingly under-studied. Scientists have been working on creating in vitro ...

Scientists have detected microplastics in human semen and follicular fluid, the liquid that surrounds an egg in an ovarian follicle. "This is not an isolated finding –– it appears to be quite common," ...