Calvin College Developmental Cell Biologist Steve Matheson points to an interesting series of papers highlighting the importance of new rapid-fire DNA sequencing technologies for the study of evolution.

FORBES: DNA Sequencing and Its Application to "Fitness"

Professor of biological chemistry and developmental and cell biology, and co-director of the Center, Peter Donovan, feels the research could have massive benefits.

CNN: Designer babies: Creating the perfect child

In this new study, detailed this week in the journal Nature Methods, Hufnagel and colleagues recorded the movements of every cell nucleus in the embryo not only during the later developmental stages, but also throughout the first three hours of the embryo's life, when nuclei divide very rapidly.

MSN: Fruit fly embryo grows into larva in 3-D video

Certainly, something unusual is happening in the process by which the egg cell sends out signals to reprogram its new nucleus and put the developmental genes back into action.

ECONOMIST: Cloning around

With the help of certain "growth" chemicals, they were able to transform the stem cells into "various cell lines and tissues, including beating human heart cells, " said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a developmental biologist at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Ore.

WSJ: Experiment Brings Human Cloning One Step Closer