Multicellular Life Evolves in Laboratory

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/evolution-of-multicellularity/

by Juha • 15 years ago

93 24 15 years ago

polemic• 15 years ago

Physics might be pure, but Biology is fking amazing.

Makes me ponder my own place in the scheme of things - made up of many multicellular components, myself a component of a society, itself one of many that make up the Human species, one of many that form the ecology of this planet

sterling312• 15 years ago

One might say that it's a super computer. What's the question again?

dangrossman• 15 years ago

> Is the universe actually a giant quantum computer? According to Seth Lloyd—Professor of Quantum-Mechanical Engineering at MIT and originator of the first technologically feasible design for a working quantum computer—the answer is yes

http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Universe-Quantum-Computer-...

charlieflowers• 15 years ago

I think it was "How many roads must a man walk down?", wasn't it?

learc83• 15 years ago

Was this completely new, or was it some sort of latent ability that was brought out by environmental conditioning?

ars2• 15 years ago

It was a latent ability. Some yeast already has the ability to make multi cellular colonies.

When this was first published (on June 23 - not sure why it's back in the news) there was a section of criticism saying they should have used an organism without that ability. But I don't see this section in the wired article.

For example:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/06/23/yeast-c...

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/331789/title/Mult...

snippyhollow• 15 years ago

It is back on the news because: “Experimental evolution of multicellularity.” By William C. Ratcliff, R. Ford Denison, Mark Borrello, and Michael Travisano. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jan. 17, 2012.

tylerritchie• 15 years ago

>... not sure why it's back in the news ...

The paper [1] was just published, the first round in the news was due to the presentation of their findings, but not the publishing of any papers (as near as I can tell). Thankfully it's an open-access article.

[1] http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1115323109

lusr2• 15 years ago

I didn't quite know how to interpret "latent ability". Reading the article, apparently yeast used to be multicellular, which is a pretty valid criticism of this experiment having meaningful results in terms of how single-celled organisms evolved into multicelluar organisms.

nickpinkston• 15 years ago

I know this type of Amoeba had a "slug" state that it can form - so it's possible for sure the similar genes are there already too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictyostelid

toppy• 15 years ago

Is it "muliticellular life" or "multicellular" life (i.e. group of independent yeasts actually)?

adimitrov• 15 years ago

The article actually says that some cells forfeit the ability to procreate, and there is true division of labor among them.

tintin2• 15 years ago

If it was so simple to do in 60 days I wonder why they don't question the several billion years.

Sandman2• 15 years ago

What do you mean? Obviously, multicellular life forms did evolve in those several billion years.

tintin2• 15 years ago

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

When these transitions only took 60 days, why not take another look at the 'several billion years'? Maybe life did form much faster under certain conditions.

radarsat1• 15 years ago

This is wonderful. It is so simple, and takes a short enough amount of time, that it would make a fantastic lab experiment for high school students. Every day, remove the heaviest yeast and place it in a new environment and feed it. After 2 months, see that the yeast has formed into a larger organism.

If this is highly repeatable, it could have a great role for science education.

gldalmaso2• 15 years ago

An honest question: aren't there potentially dangerous repercussions in breeding multicelular organisms like that? Could an innofensive organism become dangerous for us if it suddenly became more efficient and specialized?

geon• 15 years ago

Wouldn't that have happened naturally already over the thousands of years we have used yeasts?

gldalmaso2• 15 years ago

But I don't think they'll just stick with yeasts cultures after this.

Multicellular Life Evolves in Laboratory

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