For some three billion years, unicellular organisms ruled Earth. Then, around one billion years ago, a new chapter of life began. Early attempts at team living began to stick, paving the way for the ...

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 ...

Photosynthetic bacteria helped shape planet Earth. Among them are cyanobacteria that produced the oxygen in the atmosphere ...

Chromosphaera perkinsii is a single-celled species discovered in 2017 in marine sediments around Hawaii. The first signs of its presence on Earth have been dated at over a billion years, well before ...

Compressing a type of single-celled microorganism makes it develop into a multicellular tissue-like structure with different cell types. This suggests that pressure can help drive key evolutionary ...

Every multicellular organism, from tiny worms to humans, elephants, and whales, needs a way for their cells to connect with each other to form tissues, organs, and organize their overall body plan.

Researchers have discovered that virus-like nanoparticles can promote the multicellular organization and reproduction of host bacteria. These particles, which are evolutionarily related to phages ...

Life and death are traditionally viewed as opposites. However, the emergence of new multicellular life forms from the cells of a dead organism introduces a “third state” that lies beyond the ...

After a decade-long quest to fill a major gap in basic biology, UChicago scientists have built a complete map of how cells ...