Scientists have known for more than a century that a single-celled organism with no nerve cells—much less a brain—can behave ...

Ten years ago, nobody knew that Asgard archaea even existed. In 2015, however, researchers examining deep-sea sediments discovered gene fragments that indicated a new and previously undiscovered form ...

New findings challenge the long-standing idea that multi-celled animals evolved from a single-celled ancestor resembling a modern sponge cell known as a choanocyte. Scientists at The University of ...

There are three domains of life: bacteria, archaea, and eukarya. Eukaryotic cells are more complex than bacteria, but there are single-celled eukaryotes, and those that don't fit into any other ...

Two new genera and four new species of giant, single-celled xenophyophores (protozoans belonging to a group called the foraminifera) were discovered in the deep Pacific Ocean during a joint project ...

Almost all eukaryotic organisms, from plants and animals to fungi, can't survive without mitochondria -- the 'powerhouses of the cell,' which generate chemical energy using oxygen. However, a new ...

More than 100 years ago, a zoologist by the name of Herbert Spencer Jennings described surprisingly complex and varied avoidance behaviors in a single-celled freshwater protist known as Stentor ...

Physarum polycephalum is an unusual single-celled organism that can grow to be several square feet in size. These massive cells can live in cool, damp areas in temperate forests, and are able to ...

UC San Francisco scientists have uncovered how the single-celled Stentor coeruleus learns, despite lacking a brain or neurons. The organism uses calcium signaling and protein modification—mechanisms ...

Most animals require brains to run, jump or hop. The single-celled protozoan Euplotes eurystomus, however, achieves a scurrying walk using a simple, mechanical computer to coordinate its microscopic ...

A single-celled organism that walks using 14 “legs” seems to control these legs with a mechanical computer made of fibres called microtubules. The finding might help explain how many other ...

Jack has a degree in Medical Genetics from the University of Leicester.View full profile Jack has a degree in Medical Genetics from the University of Leicester. The ocean is a massive place and ...