{"id":25071,"date":"2025-03-31T21:06:14","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T21:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25071"},"modified":"2025-03-31T21:23:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T21:23:06","slug":"eating-family-style-may-have-set-the-stage-for-life-as-we-know-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25071","title":{"rendered":"Eating \u2018Family Style\u2019 May Have Set the Stage for Life as We Know It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under microscopes, scientists found that giant single-cell organisms were able to vacuum up more food when they are stuck together.<\/p>\n

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Trumpet-shape stentors, among the largest single-cell organisms known on Earth, bundle together sometimes, but scientists weren\u2019t really sure why.<\/span>By Shashank Shekhar\/Emory University<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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For a creature made up of only a single cell, the stentor is a giant. This trumpet-shape organism is among the largest unicellular organisms, stretching as long as a sharpened pencil tip. But sometimes it has a hard time vacuuming up the swimming bacteria and microscopic algae it eats to survive.<\/p>\n

New research reveals that stentors, which are part of a group called protists, may address this challenge by eating \u201cfamily style.\u201d In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Physics<\/a>, scientists shared the discovery that colonies of stentors can make water flow more quickly around them, helping them suck up more prey.<\/p>\n

The new findings suggest that, although they lack neurons or brains, stentors can cooperate with one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese single-cell organisms can do things that we assume are limited to more complex organisms,\u201d said Shashank Shekhar, a biophysicist at Emory University in Atlanta who is the lead author of the new paper. \u201cThey form this higher order structure, like what we do as humans.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Scientists believe that the ability of single-cell creatures to form groups was a key step that led to the eventual evolution of multicellular life on Earth. And the new findings spotlight the role played by physical conditions \u2014 and the interplay of predators and prey \u2014 in these cellular collaborations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In a petri dish, the scientists studied the fluid dynamics of stentors interacting with each other.<\/span>By Shashank Shekhar\/emory University<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Under microscopes, scientists found that giant single-cell organisms were able to vacuum up more food when they are stuck together.Trumpet-shape stentors, among the largest single-cell organisms known on Earth, bundle together sometimes, but scientists weren\u2019t really sure why.By Shashank Shekhar\/Emory UniversityFor a creature made up of only a single cell, the stentor is a giant. This trumpet-shape organism is among the largest unicellular organisms, stretching as long as a sharpened pencil tip. But sometimes it has a hard time vacuuming up the swimming bacteria and microscopic algae it eats to survive.New research reveals that stentors, which are part of a group called protists, may address this challenge by eating \u201cfamily style.\u201d In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Physics, scientists shared the discovery that colonies of stentors can make water flow more quickly around them, helping them suck up more prey.The new findings suggest that, although they lack neurons or brains, stentors can cooperate with one another.\u201cThese single-cell organisms can do things that we assume are limited to more complex organisms,\u201d said Shashank Shekhar, a biophysicist at Emory University in Atlanta who is the lead author of the new paper. \u201cThey form this higher order structure, like what we do as humans.\u201dScientists believe that the ability of single-cell creatures to form groups was a key step that led to the eventual evolution of multicellular life on Earth. And the new findings spotlight the role played by physical conditions \u2014 and the interplay of predators and prey \u2014 in these cellular collaborations.In a petri dish, the scientists studied the fluid dynamics of stentors interacting with each other.By Shashank Shekhar\/emory UniversityWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25073,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25071"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25076,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25071\/revisions\/25076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}