Microbe May Answer Mystery of Multicellular Life | Wired Science | Wired.com

Microbe May Answer Mystery of Multicellular Life | Wired Science | Wired.com: "Microbe May Answer Mystery of Multicellular Life

* By Brandon Keim Email Author
* July 8, 2008 |
* 1:40 pm |
* Categories: Uncategorized
*

Sponges

You may owe the complexity of your 100-trillion-celled body to the ancestors of a primitive microbe called Monisiga brevicollis.

Described in two studies published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, M. brevicollis possesses one of the most the most elaborate sets of cellular signaling genes ever found.

The microbe’s communications mechanisms could prove a critical piece in the puzzle of how single-celled organisms — the only form taken by Earthly life for three billion years — combined into many-celled creatures.

That jump has confounded scientists and inspired critics of evolution, who insist that mutation and natural selection alone are too incremental to explain such a dramatic transition."