life inspired

Under artificial pressure to become larger, single-celled yeast became multicellular creatures. That crucial step is responsible for life’s progression beyond algae and bacteria, and while the latest work doesn’t duplicate prehistoric transitions, it could help reveal the principles guiding them. See news article @ Wired.

See Full paper:

Ratcliff et al [2012]. "Experimental evolution of multicellularity". PNAS January 31, 2012 vol. 109 no. 5 1595-1600.

An evolutionary transition that took several billion years to occur in nature has happened in a laboratory, and it needed just 60 days.

Under artificial pressure to become larger, single-celled yeast became multicellular creatures. That crucial step is responsible for life’s progression beyond algae and bacteria, and while the latest work doesn’t duplicate prehistoric transitions, it could help reveal the principles guiding them. Full news article@ Wired Science

"To operate in the extreme cold, ion channels from psychrophiles must have evolved structural changes to compensate for their thermal environment. A reasonable assumption would be that the underlying adaptations lie within the encoding genes. Here, we show that [relevant genes are] extensively edited in both Antarctic and Arctic species, but mostly unedited in tropical species. Thus, A-to-I RNA editing can respond to the physical environment." Full article @ Science

"For a honeybee swarm of potentially thousands of individuals, choosing a home is a momentous decision. Failing to choose a single location may cause the swarm to split and the queen to be lost (1); choosing poorly may limit the swarm's growth or expose it to freezing temperatures during the winter (2). Studies over the past 60 years have shown that honeybee swarms use quorum sensing, a form of decentralized decision-making, to choose a suitable nest site, but many gaps remain in our understanding of this process. [...] Seeley et al. (3) show that an inhibitory signal between bees advocating different locations allows them to make a decision even when potential nest sites are equally favorable." See full perspective @ Science. Se all the target article:

Seeley et al [2012]. "Stop Signals Provide Cross Inhibition in Collective Decision-Making by Honeybee Swarms". Science 6: 108-111.