Multicellular Life Evolves In Months, In a Lab

ananyo writes "The origin of multicellular life, one of the most important developments in Earth's history, could have occurred with surprising speed, U.S. researchers have shown. In the lab, a single-celled yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) took less than 60 days to evolve into many-celled clusters that behaved as individuals. The clusters even developed a primitive division of labor, with some cells dying so that others could grow and reproduce. Multicellular life has evolved independently at least 25 times, but these transitions are so ancient that they have been hard to study. The researchers wanted to see if they could evolve multicellularity in a single-celled organism, using gravity as the selective pressure. In a tube of liquid, clusters of yeast cells settle at the bottom more quickly than single cells. By culturing only the cells that sank, they selected for those that stick together. After many rounds of selection over 60 days, the yeast had evolved into 'snowflakes' comprising dozens of cells."

Re:Not so sure about this.

[syousef]

This. I'd mod informative if I could.

Slashdot moderation simply hasn't evolved to the point where you can.

Genesis

[sakdoctor]

God still holds the copyright for the original genesis event. It should have entered the public domain, but the copyright just keeps getting extended, and extended for billions of years. God keeps raking in the royalties and has no incentive to create new works, which is why you haven't heard anything from him lately.

Relation to yeast

[pgward]

Reading the comments on the physorg page made by intelligent design supporters, I have come to a conclusion. Some of us have not evolved far beyond yeast.

Re:Not so sure about this.

[moderatorrater]

It's +5 informative now. Apparently our community acts as a group.

Re:Not so sure about this.

[cyachallenge]

Apparently the group has become self aware!

Re:Not so sure about this.

[syousef]

Apparently the group has become self aware!

Nuke from orbit. It's the only way to be sure!

Re:Not so sure about this.

[Barsteward]

nah, god of the gaps did it

Re:Organized trolling campaign on Slashdot

[NeutronCowboy]

On the upside, you are so busy posting about the moderation system that you aren't posting your usual anti-google drivel. I call that a win.