Key Step in Evolution Replicated by Scientists – With Yeast
Posted by brandoniswrite on January 23, 2012
Budding Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast cells. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
One of the great puzzles in science has been the evolution of single-celled organisms into the incredibly wide variety of flora and fauna that we see today. How did Earth make the transition from an initially lifeless ball of rock to one populated only by single-celled organisms to a world teeming with more complex life?
As scientists understand it, single-celled organisms first began evolving into more complex forms more than 500 million years ago, as they began to form multi-cellular clusters. What isn’t understood is just how that process happened. But now, biologists are another step closer figuring out this puzzle, by successfully replicating this key step – using an ingredient common in the making of bread and beer – ordinary Brewer’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). While helping to solve evolutionary riddles here on Earth, it also by extension has bearing on the question of biological evolution on other planets or moons as well.
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© Paul Scott Anderson for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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Tags: EVolution, Replicated, Scientists, step, Yeast
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