Dive into the complete episode list for This Week in Evolution. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
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1–50 of 100
Pub. Date
Title
Duration
25 May 2019
TWiEVO 43: Social evolution with a side of shrimp
01:20:37
Dustin Rubinstein joins Nels and Vincent to discuss coevolution of genome architecture and social behavior, and studying social transitions in sponge-dwelling snapping shrimp.
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17 Nov 2018
TWiEVO 37: A tangled tree on the Quammens
01:31:03
David Quammen joins Nels and Vincent to talk about his new book, A Tangled Tree, including evolutionary trees, Carl Woese, Lynn Margulis, horizontal gene transfer, and much more.
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26 Mar 2023
TWiEVO 88: Dog days of evolution in the shadows of Chernobyl
01:15:55
Nels and Vincent review a study of the dogs of Chernobyl which reveals that genetically distinct populations with different amounts of western breed contributions to their genomes, the first step in assessing the effects of exposure to long-term ionizing radiation.
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22 Nov 2017
TWiEVO 25: Pigeons show the way
01:38:25
Nels and Vincent discuss a genomic analysis of the passenger pigeon, which shows that species with large and stable populations may be at risk of extinction after a sudden environmental change.
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25 Aug 2023
TWiEVO 93: Faster than a speeding bacteria
01:30:29
Nels and Vincent review a collision of synthetic biology and experimental evolution, using a minimal synthetic bacterial cell with only 473 genes, the smallest genome of any known organism that can be grown in lab culture.
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25 Mar 2021
TWiEVO 66: SARS-2-mouse
01:33:45
Nels and Vincent review a preprint demonstrating that changes in the genomes of the SARS-CoV-2 variants B1.351 and P.1 allow the viruses to reproduce in mouse cells in culture and in laboratory mice.
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21 Sep 2018
TWiEVO 35: Strawberry sex chromosomes forever
01:36:11
Nels and Vincent reveal that female-specific DNA associated with sex in strawberries has repeatedly changed its genomic location, possibly linking new genes with sex.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
27 Jun 2019
TWiEVO 44: The enemy of my enemy is my phage
01:04:31
At ASM Microbe in San Francisco, Nels and Vincent meet up with Paul Turner to talk about evolutionary considerations in using bacteriophages to treat infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
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20 Mar 2019
TWiEVO 41: Where do baby genes come from?
01:24:09
Nels and Vincent explore the evolution of new protein-coding genes de novo from nocoding DNA sequences, using the antifreeze protein of northern codfish as a model.
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28 Dec 2021
TWiEVO 73: With a little help from your hosts
01:36:59
Nels and Vincent review three aspects of SARS-CoV-2: phylogenetics of Omicron, a two-step fitness selection for variants, and putative RNA insertions from host genomes.
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25 Feb 2021
TWiEVO 65: Variants in the mist
01:26:27
Nels and Vincent review evidence that a single amino acid change in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein has driven adaptation to humans, followed by an update on the status of variants of concern.
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09 Jul 2024
TWiEVO 103: Change the world by duplicating yourself
01:38:49
Nels and Vincent explore a direct experimental test of Ohno’s Hypothesis, which states that gene duplication can help genes tolerate new mutations and thus facilitates the evolution of new phenotypes.
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29 May 2021
TWiEVO 68: Stepping through time with SARS-CoV-2
01:33:34
Nels and Vincent explain a new method for calculating the most recent common ancestor of SARS-CoV-2, which concludes that the ancestral virus was circulating in October/November 2019, before its first detection in China.
Nicole joins Nels and Vincent to discuss the finding of her laboratory that multicellular development of choanoflagellates, the closest living relatives of animals, is regulated by bacterial lipids.
This episode is sponsored by CuriosityStream, a subscription streaming service that offers over 1,400 documentaries and nonfiction series from the world’s best filmmakers. Get unlimited access starting at just $2.99 a month, and for our audience, the first two months are completely free if you sign up at curiositystream.com/microbe and use the promo code MICROBE.
This episode is also sponsored by Drobo, a family of safe, expandable, yet simple to use storage arrays. Drobos are designed to protect your important data forever. Visit www.drobo.com to learn more.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
13 Jan 2018
TWiEVO 27: Coldevo
01:18:25
Taking a cue from the recent frigid weather, Nels and Vincent explore how modifications of a neuronal cold-sensing channel regulate diminished cold sensitivity in hibernating mammals.
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02 Jul 2022
TWiEVO 79: When the immune system is away, SARS-CoV-2 will play
01:38:30
Nels and Vincent discuss an analysis of the drivers of evolution of SARS-CoV-2 during chronic infections, indicating that a tradeoff exists between antibody evasion and fitness.
This episode is brought to you by Blue Apron. Blue Apron is the #1 fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in the country. See what’s on the menu this week and get your first 3 meals free with your first purchase – WITH FREE SHIPPING – by going to blueapron.com/twie.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
29 Jul 2019
TWiEVO 45: Microbial secrets of mouse-ear cress
01:02:01
At ASM Microbe in San Francisco, Nels and Vincent meet up with Talia Karasov who reveals that in contrast to agriculture, wild plants are colonized by multiple lineages of pathogenic bacteria.
This episode is brought to you by Blue Apron. Blue Apron is the #1 fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in the country. Get $30 off your first order and free shipping by going to blueapron.com/twie.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
04 Apr 2020
TWiEVO 53: Virus evolution by land and by sea and by CoV, part II
01:31:53
Nels and Vincent continue their discussion of SARS-CoV-2 from an evolutionary viewpoint, focusing on what the genome sequences tell us about the virus.
This episode is brought to you by Blue Apron. Blue Apron is the #1 fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in the country. See what’s on the menu this week and get your first 3 meals free with your first purchase – WITH FREE SHIPPING – by going to blueapron.com/twie.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
24 Dec 2019
TWiEVO 50: I'm dreaming of a Y chromosome
01:42:57
Nels and Vincent discuss signatures of sex chromosome evolution revealed by assembly of a young vertebrate Y chromosome from 3-spined stickleback fish.
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08 Nov 2022
TWiEVO 84: Decoding our defenses to the Black Death
01:31:42
Nels and Vincent review the use of ancient DNA to identify loci that may have been under selection during the Black Death by studying populations before, during, and after the pandemic.
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21 Mar 2018
TWiEVO 29: Evolution on the wing
01:42:23
Nels and Vincent discuss the evolution of blood feeding to nonbiting in a mosquito, and evolution of bacterial virulence in the house finch caused by incomplete host immunity.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
30 Aug 2017
TWiEVO 22: E pluribus cerevisiae
01:21:31
Maitreya Dunham joins Nels and Vincent to explain how her laboratory uses experimental evolution to study yeast flocculation, the community-building cell aggregation trait.
This episode is brought to you by Blue Apron. Blue Apron is the #1 fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in the country. See what’s on the menu this week and get your first 3 meals free with your first purchase – WITH FREE SHIPPING – by going to blueapron.com/twie.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
21 Dec 2022
TWiEVO 85: Teaching old dogs new genetic tricks
01:37:16
Nels and Vincent discuss the use of genome sequence data for over 4,000 domestic, semi-feral, and wild canids to understand the genetic drivers of canine behavior.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
10 Mar 2024
TWiEVO 100: Spaces that celebrate science
01:31:24
Rich Condit joins Nels and Vincent at the Science Mill in Johnson City, Texas, where Director of STEM Education Jeehyun Park talks about the goals of the childrens’ museum.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
28 Aug 2020
TWiEVO 59: The hypothesis giving tree
01:27:49
Nels and Vincent answer listener questions and discuss a newly discovered virus of amoeba with a nearly complete ORFan genome: none of the proteins encoded in the viral genome look like any other proteins.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
25 Apr 2020
TWiEVO 54: Rough drafts of SARS-CoV-2 science
01:17:41
Nels and Vincent continue their discussion of SARS-CoV-2 from an evolutionary viewpoint, including function of the furin cleavage site, whether Vervet cells are an informative system, another bat isolate, and a nomenclature to assist genomic epidemiology.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
20 May 2020
TWiEVO 56: Revising the drafts of coronavirus evolution
01:28:05
Nels and Vincent continue their discussion of SARS-CoV-2 evolution, including understanding recurrent mutations in the viral genome, and the potential for re-emergence of the virus from an animal reservoir.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
15 Feb 2019
TWiEVO 40: Eau de bee
01:11:37
Nels and Vincent move back to reproductive isolation - this time, pre-zygotic, in the charismatic orchid bee where the males make chemically distinct perfumes to attract mates of the same species.
Nels and Vincent reveal how introns - the parts of pre-mRNAs that are removed by splicing - were generated by DNA transposons in two different picoeukaryotes.
This episode is brought to you by Blue Apron. Blue Apron is the #1 fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in the country. See what’s on the menu this week and get your first 3 meals free with your first purchase – WITH FREE SHIPPING – by going to blueapron.com/twie.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
26 Dec 2023
TWiEVO 96: Going bananas over the origins of corn
01:29:20
Nels and Vincent discuss the origins of two modern day agriculturally important plants: a role for two different wild teosintes in making modern maize, and the origin and evolution of the triploid cultivated banana genome.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
22 Jan 2021
TWiEVO 64: Seeing the lineages for the variants
01:48:43
Nels and Vincent consider evolution of antibody immunity to SARS-CoV-2, and update the situation on novel virus variants of concern with potentially altered fitness and reactivity with antibodies.
Nels visits Vincent in the MicrobeTV studio in New York and talks about how key genes of the Homo sapiens innate immune response were acquired from Neanderthals.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
06 May 2020
TWiEVO 55: Coronavirus evolution from soup to nuts
01:13:51
Nels and Vincent continue their discussion of SARS-CoV-2 evolution, with a report that the coronavirus proofreading enzyme stimulates RNA recombination, and debunking the conclusion that a change in the viral spike glycoprotein is associated with increased human to human transmission.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
17 Jul 2023
TWiEVO 91: Meet your very distant cousins
01:31:50
Nels and Vincent discuss new findings using phylogenetic approaches about how complex eukaryotic cells emerged from prokaryotic ancestors, which firmly place eukaryotes as a clade nested within the Asgard archaea.
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31 Oct 2020
TWiEVO 61: Shot and chaser of SARS-CoV-2 evolution
01:25:55
Nels and Vincent discuss an opinion piece on 12 evolutionary insights into how the COVID-19 pandemic is shaping human nature, and prolonged SARS-CoV-2 reproduction in an immunosuppressed patient.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
26 Feb 2020
TWiEVO 52: Virus evolution by land and by sea and by CoV
01:22:43
Nels and Vincent examine SARS-CoV-2 from an evolutionary viewpoint, examining what the spike glycoprotein sequence informs us about the origin of the virus.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
21 Apr 2018
TWiEVO 30: Driving Miss Maize-y
01:15:07
Nels and Vincent reveal how a motor protein in corn causes preferential transmission of chromosomes to egg cells, leading to non-Mendelian inheritance.
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25 Sep 2022
TWiEVO 82: A genetic hack for the human brain
01:32:27
Nels and Vincent consider evidence that a single amino acid change in the TKTL1 gene might have led to greater neurogenesis in the frontal cortex of modern humans compared with Neanderthals.
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13 Jul 2017
TWiEVO 21: A virus with a green thumb
01:45:29
Rich Condit joins Nels and Vincent to explain how a vaccinia virus protein customizes ribosomes to favor the translation of viral mRNAs with a stretch of A residues in the 5'-untranslated region.
This episode is brought to you by Blue Apron. Blue Apron is the #1 fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in the country. See what’s on the menu this week and get your first 3 meals free with your first purchase – WITH FREE SHIPPING – by going to blueapron.com/twie.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
26 Oct 2021
TWiEVO 72: Echoes of evolution both shallow and deep
01:15:22
Nels and Vincent discuss evolutionary evidence for an epidemic of coronavirus infection over 20,000 years ago in East Asia, and reconstruction of the membrane differences between bacteria and Archaea reveals unexpected differences in permeability.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
05 Feb 2023
TWiEVO 86: Pulling out the stops in genetic code evolution
01:45:15
Nels and Vincent discuss how evolution of changes in stop codon assignment might occur, and a novel mechanism for altering the meaning of translation stop codons discovered in a trypanosomatid with the apropos name, Blastocrithidia nonstop.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
31 Dec 2020
TWiEVO 63: Year of the coronavirus
01:30:33
Nels and Vincent wrap up 2020 with a discussion of novel variants of SARS-CoV-2 that have emerged in the United Kingdom and South Africa, how to interpret the rapidly emerging genome sequence data and what to look for in the coming weeks as these variants spread across the globe.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
30 Jun 2021
TWiEVO 69: Swimming in SARS-CoV-2 sequences
01:30:13
Nels and Vincent discuss the identification of novel bat coronaviruses that shed light on the evolution of SARS-CoV-2, dating the first cases of COVID-19 to mid-November 2019, and recovery of deleted genome sequences from early in the Wuhan outbreak.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
16 Aug 2018
TWiEVO 34: You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s PON
01:22:27
Nels and Vincent discuss how the loss of an enzyme in marine mammals millions of years ago now makes them at risk for neurotoxicity caused by human-made organophosphorous pesticides.
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26 May 2022
TWiEVO 78: The virus daily double
01:21:42
Nels and Vincent provide an update on cases of monkeypox, and summarize a biochemical view of three changes in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that may balance positive and negative selection.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
24 Dec 2018
TWiEVO 38: Evolving to evolve
01:20:41
Nels and Vincent reveal a highly conserved protein that acts as an evolvability factor, increasing mutation and the ability of bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
24 Oct 2018
TWiEVO 36: All's not quiet on the telomeric front
01:15:06
Mia joins Nels and Vincent to unravel their finding that the transposons that maintain the ends of chromosomes in Drosophilahave evolved in conflict with the genome.
This episode is brought to you by Blue Apron. Blue Apron is the #1 fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in the country. See what’s on the menu this week and get your first 3 meals free – WITH FREE SHIPPING – by going to blueapron.com/twie.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
24 Aug 2022
TWiEVO 81: Evolution's new and improved slime molds
01:26:19
Nels and Vincent discuss how duplication of a gene encoding a transcription factor led to evolution of a novel cell type in the slime mold Dictyostelium.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
25 Apr 2023
TWiEVO 89: On the outer rim of tumor evolution
01:40:58
Nels and Vincent discuss the observation that cells on a boundary of a solid tumor have higher growth rates compared to those in the center and how to model this difference using genome sequencing data.
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21 Feb 2023
TWiEVO 87: Nathan Clark's revolutionary hair care advice
01:34:03
Nathan joins Nels and Vincent to discuss his approach to understanding how species adopt novel traits to overcome challenges, and its application to identifying coding and noncoding sequence changes that underlie mammalian hairlessness.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
19 Sep 2019
TWiEVO 47: On the origin of beer species
01:31:43
Nels and Vincent trace the origins of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains used to make beer, and find that ales and lagers are made with yeasts that were derived from those used to make European grape wine and Asian rice wine.
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14 Nov 2023
TWiEVO 95: Watering the viruses until they bloom
01:01:30
Nels and Vincent discuss how the rewetting of seasonally dried soils, a critical event in Mediterranean grasslands that reactivates dormant soil microorganisms, leading to pulses of carbon and nitrogen mineralization, and is accompanied by a bloom of viral diversity, followed by extensive viral community turnover.
Mike joins Nels and Vincent to talk about his work on what controls whether pigeons have scaly or feathered feet, and reveals that the hindlimbs of domestic birds with feathery feet are more like wings at the molecular level.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
01 Aug 2022
TWiEVO 80: Viruses of a feather bottleneck together
01:24:16
Louise Moncla joins Nels and Vincent to review her use of genomics to understand emergence, evolution, and transmission of respiratory viruses including influenza virus H5N1, mumps virus, and SARS-CoV-2.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
31 Aug 2019
TWiEVO 46: Can an old tumor teach us new tricks?
01:32:05
Nels and Vincent analyze the genomes of canine transmissible tumors to provide insight into the worldwide spread of the disease from its origin in a single dog 4000-8500 years ago, and its diversity, mutation, and evolution.
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25 Sep 2020
TWiEVO 60: Five years of TWiEVO on the future of our past
01:50:46
On the fifth anniversary of TWiEVO, Nels and Vincent invite 12 evolutionary biologists to describe exciting future directions for the field and their laboratory in the next five years.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
26 Jan 2019
TWiEVO 39: In a Legionella of their own
01:17:11
Nels and Vincent look at the intracellular bacteria Legionella from an evolutionary perspective: the role of gene acquisition and reshuffling from plants, animals, fungi, and archaea in the emergence of human pathogens.
Buck and Sean join Vincent in New York, while Sylvia is with Nels in Salt Lake City to discuss the first mutant ant ever made: disruption of orco, a gene required for function of odorant receptors, show defects in social behavior and fitness.
This episode is brought to you by Blue Apron. Blue Apron is the #1 fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in the country. See what’s on the menu this week and get your first 3 meals free with your first purchase – WITH FREE SHIPPING – by going to blueapron.com/twie.
Nels and Vincent continue with an emerging sub-theme of TWiEVO - organisms with wings - as they reveal how enhancer shuffling produces diverse butterfly wing patterns.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
27 Sep 2021
TWiEVO 71: Faster than a speeding coronavirus
01:27:35
Nels and Vincent explain a method to calculate the mutation rate of SARS-CoV-2, and the role of a single amino acid change in spike in enhancing fitness of the delta variant and enabling it to out-compete the alpha variant.
Josh joins Nels and Vincent to talk about his research on the evolution and conservation of aquatic tropical biodiversity, and the historical ecology of 19th century American Whalers.
This episode is sponsored by CuriosityStream, a subscription streaming service that offers over 1,400 documentaries and nonfiction series from the world’s best filmmakers. Get unlimited access starting at just $2.99 a month, and for our audience, the first two months are completely free if you sign up at curiositystream.com/microbe and use the promo code MICROBE.
This episode is also sponsored by Drobo, a family of safe, expandable, yet simple to use storage arrays. Drobos are designed to protect your important data forever. Visit www.drobo.com to learn more.
From the Microbial Pathogenesis Retreat of the University of Utah School of Medicine, held at the Utah Museum of Natural History, Nels and Vincent speak with faculty members about their work on bacteria, fungi, viruses, and mirror-image biochemistry.
This episode is sponsored by CuriosityStream, a subscription streaming service that offers over 1,400 documentaries and nonfiction series from the world’s best filmmakers. Get unlimited access starting at just $2.99 a month, and for our audience, the first two months are completely free if you sign up at curiositystream.com/microbe and use the promo code MICROBE.
Nels and Vincent speak with Jim Bull about the results of genetic models which suggest that the evolution of inbreeding in response to lethal gene drive might make population control difficult to achieve.
Daniel joins Nels and Vincent to discuss his new book on army ants, the wickedest insects ever to roam the planet, and his research on them and clonal raider ants.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
22 Jan 2020
TWiEVO 51: The starting point paradox
01:10:51
Nels and Vincent dive deep into evolution and consider how new proteins emerged billions of years ago, when there were no other proteins to serve as starting material.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
29 Sep 2023
TWiEVO 94: A bacteria, a phage, and a selfish element walk into a cryptomonad
01:37:03
Nels and Vincent take apart an amazing symbiosis consisting of two bacteria, one bacteriophage, and seven different genomes all within a single-celled alga.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
31 Jul 2024
TWiEVO 104: Wooly mammoth prosciutto
01:17:37
Nels and Vincent discuss the genome sequence of an ancient wooly mammoth, which shows that the three-dimensional architecture of the DNA can persist after 50,000 years.
Nels and Vincent review experiments showing that the replacement of a pale moth with a black one during the industrial revolution was caused by a transposable element.
This episode is sponsored by CuriosityStream, a subscription streaming service that offers over 1,400 documentaries and nonfiction series from the world’s best filmmakers. Get unlimited access starting at just $2.99 a month, and for our audience, the first two months are completely free if you sign up at curiositystream.com/microbe and use the promo code MICROBE.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
12 May 2023
TWiEVO 90: The mystery of the mouse mummies
01:27:40
Nels and Vincent provide insights into the mystery of mouse mummies on the summits of >6000 m Andean volcanoes, including whether they were living there and if so why?
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
31 Oct 2019
TWiEVO 48: Flipping out with choanos on caffeine
01:34:29
Nels and Vincent reveal a new choanoflagellate that forms multicellular cup shaped colonies that respond to light to alternate between feeding and swimming behavior.
Send your evolution questions and comments to twievo@microbe.tv
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