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 ...

Life’s leap from single-celled to multicellular organisms marks a pivotal moment in evolutionary history. This transformation laid the foundation for the complex life forms we see today. By studying ...

Oxygen played a key role in the evolution of complex organisms, according to new research published in BMC Evolutionary Biology. The study shows that the complexity of life forms increased earlier ...

In a groundbreaking experiment, researchers have brought a mouse to life with the help of a single-celled organism that existed long before any multicellular animals walked the earth. Genetic research ...

Scientists in Japan have discovered a previously unknown giant virus, offering new insight into this enigmatic category of viruses – and possibly also into the origins of multicellular life. The virus ...

Life emerged on Earth some 3.8 billion years ago. The “primordial soup theory” proposes that chemicals floating in pools of water, in the presence of sunlight and electrical discharge, spontaneously ...

Physical principles of evolution / Peter Schuster -- The interplay of replication, variation and selection in the dynamics of evolving populations / Richard A. Blythe -- A simple general model of ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Once upon a time, long ago, the world was encased in ice. That’s the tale told by sedimentary rock in the tropics, many geologists ...

For decades, many scientists have relied on the "hard steps" model to suggest that intelligent life is rare — the improbable result of a series of unlikely evolutionary leaps. But new research by ...

Foreword : the evolution of multicellularity / John Tyler Bonner -- I. Functional and molecular predispositions to multicellularity. Fossils, feeding, and the evolution of complex multicellularity / ...

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 ...

WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- Humans like to think that being multicellular (and bigger) is a definite advantage, even though 80 percent of life on Earth consists of single-celled organisms – some thriving in ...