The evolution of multicellular life requires cooperation among cells, which can be undermined by intra-group selection for selfishness. Theory predicts that selection to avoid non-cooperators limits ...

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 ...

Scientists discover microRNAs in the unicellular green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. This is the first finding of microRNAs in a unicellular organism. An international collaboration of researchers, ...

Scientists at Nagoya University in Japan have identified the genes that allow an organism to switch between living as single cells and forming multicellular structures. This ability to alternate ...

Multicellular organisms (animals, plants, humans) all have the ability to methylate the cytosine base in their DNA. This process, a type of epigenetic modification, plays an important role in ...

The world is full of unusual unicellular organisms and microbes, many of which have not been discovered yet. In 2017, scientists identified a single-celled marine organism called Chromosphaera ...

Scaling up from one cell to many may have been a small step rather than a giant leap for early life on Earth. A single-celled organism closely related to animals controls its life cycle using a ...

In the May 15th issue of Genes & Development, an international collaboration of researchers, led by Dr. Yijun Qi (National Institute of Biological Sciences, China), report on their discovery of ...

Molecular cloning is usually carried out on one gene or small DNA segment at a time. However, cloning technology has advanced to the stage that scientists have begun cloning genomes of entire ...

If there is one process that a cell must do right, it is copying its DNA before division, and making sure that the chromosomes are distributed properly to the daughter cells. This is even more ...

The oceans are home to innumerable creatures, from minute bacteria to the mighty blue whale. Amid this, there are various unicellular organisms which exist. These organisms have a single cell, which ...