New studies by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology show that competition between different evolutionary developmental stages of multicellular life cycles can be important for the ...

Stentor coeruleus is a giant unicellular, filter-feeding protist that uses the coordinated motion of its oral ciliary structure to generate feeding currents. These currents allow the organism to ...

Over 3,000 generations of laboratory evolution, Georgia Tech researchers watched as their model organism, “snowflake yeast,” began to adapt as multicellular individuals. catherine.barzler@gatech.edu ...

Images of the multicellular development of the ichthyosporean Chromosphaera perkinsii, a close cousin of animals. In red, the membranes and in blue the nuclei with their DNA. The image was obtained ...

Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could come down to how prokaryotic genomes respond to a small population size. Every organism visible to the ...

Researchers find that oxygenation of Earth's surface is key to the evolution of large, complex multicellular organisms. If cells can access oxygen, they get a big metabolic benefit. However, when ...

Marine bacteria normally seen as single cells join together as a “microscopic snow globe” to consume bulky floating carbohydrates. Close your eyes and imagine bacteria. Perhaps you’re picturing our ...

Groundbreaking fossils unearthed in China suggest that multicellular organisms arose earlier than scientists previously thought. The fossils, of what may be an ancient type of photosynthetic alga, are ...

Bacterial superorganisms must evolve defenses to fight off infections, and microbiologists found that they use a weapons cache coincidentally similar to that of the human immune system. B cells churn ...

A study presents a striking example of cooperative organization among cells as a potential force in the evolution of multicellular life. The study is based on the fluid dynamics of cooperative feeding ...