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A new paper describing the results of a yeast evolution experiment has been published in Evolution. Jordan Gulli exposed nascent multicellular “snowflake yeast” to an environment in which solitary multicellular clusters experienced low survival. In response, snowflake yeast evolved to form cooperative groups composed of thousands of multicellular clusters.

Gulli et al. 2019 Fig. 2
Figure 2 from Gulli et al. 2019. Evolution of proteinaceous aggregates that bind many multicellular clusters. When subjected to strong settling selection, snowflake yeast evolved to form cooperative aggregates composed of hundreds of clusters (A). A composite image (B) reveals the aggregates are composed of both protein (C, green, Qubit fluorescent protein stain) and DNA (D, red, propidium iodide). Cells embedded within the aggregate are shown in blue (E, Cell Tracker Blue). Scale bars are 500 μm.

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Our Director of Communications, Maureen Rouhi, has written a press release to accompany the new Scientific Reports paper, “De novo origins of multicellularity in response to predation.”

Coauthors currently at Georgia Tech in front of the Ramblin’ Wreck (left to right): Kimberly Chen, Will Ratcliff, Frank Rosenzweig, and me. Photo by Jennifer Pentz. Not shown: Josh Borin, Jacob Boswell, Jillian Walker, Alex Knox, and Maggie Boyd.

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The time-lapse videos Josh Borin recorded, which show growth of unicellular and multicellular isolates described in the new Scientific Reports paper, are now available on YouTube. Although the videos for this open access paper are available for download from the publisher, several commenters have complained that they are not viewable on all platforms. Hopefully they are now viewable by everyone.

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I have set up a new page, Fierce Roller Blog, to post links to content from freethoughtblogs.com/fierceroller on topics related to my research interests. If I have set this up right, the blog content will not show up on my home page, which will be reserved for announcements related to my lab and research. You will find the blog content under the “Fierce Roller Blog” entry in the main menu.