All modern multicellular life — all life that any of us regularly see — is made of cells with a knack for compartmentalization. Recent discoveries are revealing how the first eukaryote got its start.

A new hypothesis suggests that it could come down to how prokaryotic genomes respond to a small population size. Every organism visible to the naked eye is a mass of genetically identical cells. Each ...

preserved in situ in the cells of a multicellular eukaryote that is about one billion years old: Arctacellularia tetragonala. "We identified these fragments as chlorophyll derivatives, indicating ...

Consequently, they constitute the oldest multicellular eukaryotes ever described to date. By studying the sedimentary structures of this site, which is remarkable both for its richness and quality ...

Although mutation rates are known to vary among species, little is known about the forces that underlie this variation at an empirical level, particularly in multicellular eukaryotes. The ...

A eukaryote is any cell or organism that possesses a clearly defined nucleus. Eukaryotic cells form the foundation of complex, multicellular life, including apple trees, mushrooms, fish and humans.

They are generally smaller and simpler and include bacteria and archaea. Eukaryotes on the other hand are often multicellular and have a nucleus and membrane-bound organelles, which help to organize ...

The fossils, of what may be an ancient type of photosynthetic alga, are the oldest known multicellular eukaryotes, a group of organisms that contains a clearly defined nucleus full of packaged DNA.

These exquisitely preserved microfossils are currently considered the oldest record of multicellular eukaryotes. This study is another breakthrough after the researchers’ earlier discovery of ...

Similarly, in 2021 Strother and his colleagues described another billion-year-old eukaryote called Bicellum brasieri, found in the Scottish Highlands. This one was multicellular, and what’s more ...

The study also shows that RNA-guided DNA-cutting mechanisms are present in both unicellular nucleus-lacking prokaryotes and multicellular nuclei endowed eukaryotes. “CRISPR-based systems are ...