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The Huffington Post:

Scientists Demonstrate Evolution Of Multicellularity In Experiment

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/multicellular-life_n_1213355.html

by Rebecca Searles

First Posted: 1/18/12 02:24 PM ET Updated: 1/18/12 03:37 PM ET

What does ordinary yeast have to say about evolution? Quite a lot, if the authors of a new study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences are correct. The study showed that many-celled life can, in fact, evolve from single cells. Since life began as a single-celled organism 500 million years ago, the research is crucial to understand how it evolved into the plants and animals we see today.

A couple of years ago, a casual comment over coffee led researchers Will Ratcliff and Michael Travisano to pursue the problem of bridging the gap from unicellular to multicellular organisms. It was “just about the coolest thing we could do," they said in a written statement.