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The new study attempts to follow more the behavior of simple multicellular groups more closely. It uses baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), an organism that normally grows as single cells. The authors grew these in culture and, once a day, transferred them in a way that favored multicellular growth.Their method was pretty simple. Normally, yeast are grown in a culture that's shaken, and the single cells will only slowly settle to the bottom when that's stopped. The authors only transferred the cells at the bottom of the culture to fresh food, so that they selected for those cells that settled to the bottom quickly. This favors large clusters of cells, instead of single ones.With only 60 daily transfers, all of their experimental populations were dominated by yeast cells that grew as clusters, which the authors describe as "roughly spherical snowflake-like." These were formed because, instead of separating after they divided, cells would remain attached, expanding the cluster with each division. Although this comes at a cost compared to individual cellsâ€â€the authors calculate that individual cells in the cluster are 10 percent less fit than their single-celled relatives when they're not selecting for things on the bottom. But, with the selection in place, the clusters had a huge advantage.
That may be the single gayest thing I have ever read on this board. Or the old one.
Life for the sake of life means nothing.
I'd be more sympathetic if people here didn't act like they knew what they were saying when they were saying something very much wrong.
Commenter Brendan Rizzo is an American (still living there) who really, really hates America. He used to make posts defending his country from anti-American attacks but got fed up with it all.
What about missing links?