Some very simple organisms are capable of very complex behavior, like fungi that exhibit signs of memory or bacterial cells that can orchestrate their activity and work as a larger organism.

From Massachusetts to Mississippi, a unicellular protist is hinting at answers about the evolution of multicellularity while raising a whole new set of questions. From Massachusetts to Mississippi, a ...

The forms of protists are as varied as they are ethereal, and all are invisible to the naked eye. For the past seven years, Kevin J. Carpenter has been researching and photographing some of these ...

Just as the human body serves as a habitat for bacteria and other microbes, diverse, tiny organisms known as protists host their own microbiomes. "We know there are many symbionts in the world, but it ...

Scientists testing a new method of sequencing single cells have unexpectedly changed our understanding of the rules of genetics. The genome of a protist has revealed a seemingly unique divergence in ...

New genetic evidence builds the case that single-celled marine microbes might chow down on viruses. By Katherine J. Wu On the dinner plate that is planet Earth, there exists a veritable buffet of ...

Researchers studied in detail the strange protist Meteora sporadica, which swings its two lateral arms back and forth. The results of the study indicated that M. sporadica has a complex cytoskeleton ...

Mitochondria are very well known as the powerhouses of the cell. Generally speaking, all eukaryotes, including plants, fungi, and animals, are made of cells that contain mitochondria. These organelles ...

Protists represent a remarkably diverse group of unicellular and simple multicellular eukaryotes that occupy a broad spectrum of ecological niches. Recent advances have greatly enhanced our ...

The high numbers and diversity of protists in soil systems have long been presumed, but their true diversity and community composition have remained largely concealed. Traditional cultivation-based ...

Talk about extended family: A single-celled organism in Norway has been called "mankind's furthest relative." It is so far removed from the organisms we know that researchers claim it belongs to a new ...

Encouraged by these results, Dudin, Dey, Guichard, and Hamel launched a close collaboration. Three years later, their work has produced near-encyclopedic insight into hundreds of protist species and ...