Selection favours single-celled mutants that stick together when a sugar needed for growth is in short supply, suggesting that multicellular life may have evolved as a by-product of selection for more efficient usage of resources.

Bacteria have a role in the formation of colonies by a species of single-celled organisms whose ancestors gave rise to the animals, which suggests that bacteria might also have influenced the origin of multicellularity in animals.

Actin networks in certain single-celled organisms exhibit a complex pattern-forming dynamics that starts with the appearance of static spots of actin on the cell cortex. Spots soon become mobile, executing persistent random walks, and eventually give rise to traveling waves of actin. Here we describe a possible physical mechanism for this distinctive set of dynamic transformations, by equipping...

The capacity to migrate is fundamental to multicellular and single-celled life. Apicomplexan parasites, an ancient protozoan clade that includes malaria parasites (Plasmodium) and Toxoplasma, achieve remarkable speeds of directional cell movement. This rapidity is achieved via a divergent actomyosin motor system, housed within a narrow compartment that lies underneath the length of the parasite...

Volvocine algae constitute a green algal lineage comprising unicellular Chlamydomonas, four-celled Tetrabaena, eight to 32-celled Gonium, and others up to Volvox spp., which consist of up to 50,000 cells. These algae proliferate by multiple fissions with cellular growth up to several fold in size and subsequent successive cell divisions. Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells produce two to 32 daughte...

By Dawson F. D. Turner, M.D., F.R.C.P., Physician in Charge of Radium Department, Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh A male, aged 65, was recommended to me by Professor Alexis Thomson for radium treatment in June 1911. He was suffering from a recurrent small-celled lymphosarcoma, which was inoperable. The first operation was performed on 21st August 1909. The tumour was then situated in the axilla, and...