Mind-blowing Experiment Evolved Multicellular Life In Just 600 days

permanent, some of these structures acquiring different functions and eventually evolving into some of the first primitive animal life on the planet. Life that contained billions and even trillions of cells, differentiating and creating specific organs and eventually evolving more and more complexity. Or in essence, sometimes in the past, we had this very unusual transition from, basically, successful single cells into more complex multicells. And this was of

course the creation of the first multicellular life. Or so the theory goes. We obviously have no actual proof or evidence for any of this. Most of because none of this would survive billions of years of being stuck inside the fossil. Because our planet still has single cells, and because we have multicellular life like ourselves, who exist in single cells, it's the only explanation currently makes sense.

But how exactly did this change from micro to micro? How did one cell become many? And what led to the formation of this unusual structure that I guess to some extent would not really make sense at first? Single cells are usually very successful by themselves. Now it's a difficult question to answer, and especially a more difficult question to answer when it comes to the timeline. But

it's a question we can try to answer by conducting experiments in present time. And it looks like this recent experiment might have provided some extremely central answers for how this might have happened. A whole lot of a person is a dent on, and today we're going to be discussing one of the potential answers for this unusual phenomenon of single cells becoming multicellas. Or a crucial step

in the evolution of complex life when it planet that up until recently was somewhat difficult to answer. A recent experiment was actually physically able to recreate a formation of multicellular life. Not a really complex one, but actually somewhat large in size and even visible to a naked eye. And somewhat related to the Fermi paradox videos on a channel, to some extent the solar relays or provide

an answer to the idea known as the Great Filter or the Great Filter Hypothesis. We know that for some reason life on a planet went through this extreme change where a lot of single cells on planet Earth preferentially started to evolve into multicellas eventually leading to organisms like us. And it's actually super important to figure out why this happened in order to figure out if it

could happen on another planet. So if we were to figure out how to solve this problem, we would have to have very similar conditions to planet Earth or at least similar limitations in order for multicellular life to occur. And so what exactly did the scientists recently discover? Well as always you can find the links for all of this in the description below, but in a nutshell

this particular study focused on studying something that's already been studied for quite a long time in a world of different similar conditions. Here we're talking about this. This is Common East. The stuff that we use in baking systems that are technically eucaryoric, which makes them more complex in bacteria. But in essence are also members of the fungus kingdom, basically mushroom kingdom. And unlike bacteria they were

only developed a few hundred million years ago, so these are recent arrivals to planet Earth compared to more ancient life. Now one thing that makes East somewhat interesting is that it does have a tendency to collaborate or cooperate with bacteria as well. Here's an example from the drink known as Kanbuja. And in some cases it forms relatively complex colonies as well. And it's obviously also relatively

easy to grow and humanity has been growing East for thousands of years since some of the early bread and of course some of the earlier beer. And so because it's so easy to grow, for the past few years some scientists in certain labs wanted to see if they can actually evolve East all a little bit faster. And so in some of the earlier experiments, they grew

East in tubes and watched some of the cells combine into larger chunks and sink to the bottom. And so as far back as 2012 they actually were able to selectively breed certain East cells to create larger and larger structures much faster. Or just to rephrase this, they selectedly bred East to form small multicellular structures with a lot more efficiency and much faster than regular East by

selectively breeding it over several different generations of collecting East chunks from the bottom of these tubes. This was basic Darwinian selection at work and this didn't really take long to produce larger chunks. As a matter of fact, I think it's a very interesting thing to do. According to the scientists behind the study, this only took approximately 60 days. And so after 60 days of breeding, most

of the East would prefer to form larger structures compared to single structures. But this of course had no actual reason for happening and normally occurred randomly because instead of drifting apart, some cells would stick together creating larger and larger structures. Either way, after just two months, they went from predominantly single cell to multicellular East that looked a little bit mightier and a little bit chunkier. And

obviously this was kind of interesting and so many triggering at first. It didn't necessarily show us how multicellular life evolved afterwards, especially because at this point, they basically got stuck. This was as big as these East cells would get. No matter what the scientists did, they would not get bigger than a few micrometers. And more importantly, they didn't actually have a very strong connection and would

be very easy to break. And so not only would they kind of fragile, they sort of refused to grow past a few hundred cells. And so in that sense, this was not really a proof of anything. It didn't show us how multicellular life could have evolved and just showed us that some cells can basically just stick together. But that's of course until the more recent study

from 2023. The scientists did something else and it really transformed everything. With this image alone, enough to show us the transformation. It went from just a few hundred cells to really large chunks visible with naked eye. Some chunks being 20,000 times bigger than 80,000. And so anything from 10 years ago and containing up to half a million cells in mini cases was specific function. And more

importantly, three dimensional structure that seemed to be more or less permanent and would not break very easily. And so what exactly happened here and what did the scientists change in order to demonstrate all of this? Well, intriguingly, they didn't actually add anything. They took something away. By taking these smaller chunks and depriving them of oxygen, they suddenly created conditions where it was beneficial. They were very

beneficial for yeast to not be alone and to be in larger structures. And keeping yeast in oxygen in the prime conditions for several months, they realized that all of these structures would grow larger and larger because it seemed to be beneficial for their survival. Within 600 days, they would be visible to naked eye. Here, this is a few millimeters across. More importantly, a lot of cells

in this case became much longer, strengthened the connection between themselves and started to develop individual structures that would provide additional resilience, making these structures stronger than the wood, to some extent even resembling simple bodies. But more importantly, the cells within the structure now started to acquire different roles. Some cells grew really fast. Some cells provided very rigid, very tough structure, yet other cells for some reason

would self-destruct. In other words, this was a definitive sign of multi-cellular formation, same cells performing different roles in a much larger organism. Although this type of work of emerging behavior is actually quite common in nature. You can actually find another video on the famous Sly Mode in the description below, where this unusual single cell organism starts to acquire a lot of complex emerging properties as it

becomes larger and larger in size, to some extent even mimicking simple intelligence. And so seeing these emerging properties, coming from common yeast, is not unusual either. As a matter of fact, we believe that this is sort of a common feature for a lot of complex structures. Something becomes larger and more complex, a lot of unexpected emerging properties usually start to arise as well. What sort of

properties is anyone's guess? Although I guess the more interesting question here is why exactly did some cells start to self-destruct? Well here the scientists believe that maybe this is one of the ways they can create reproductive clusters. By releasing small fragments into the environment around themselves, they basically provide more nutrients, possibly allowing other structures to grow larger and larger as well. And it's kind of difficult

to determine. And intriguingly, after just two years, these structures also evolved an emerging property that allowed them to bring nutrients to the cell inside the structure, while the same time getting rid of various types of waste. Basically it managed to evolve a really rudimentary, circulatory system. With all this basically happening as a result of that external pressure, lack of oxygen, and selective breeding. Recreated entirely in

a scientific lab. And they usually scientists assume that oxygen should be good for multicellular life. It's really the absence of oxygen that seems to cause life to come into larger structures and to form larger bodies. In an oxygen rich environment, it's probably a lot more beneficial to stay as a single cell. And obviously it doesn't show us how something extremely complex can form. It definitely demonstrates

the formation of much more simple multicellular life, which in time could evolve complexity as well. And because we know that multicellular life on a planet evolved at least 25 times in the past, these new experiments and these new observations show us that maybe this is something that's very common across the entire universe, assuming that single cells exist there as well. Emory comes to Fermi paradox and

the great filter, presenting some evidence that maybe this is not one of the filters after all. Maybe this is just something really common and could happen anywhere. Because it definitely happened in this lab in just over two years. And that's absolutely incredible. It's a very important thing to do. So actually a super intriguing discovery when it comes to the evolution of life on a planet and

sort of looking forward to seeing more from this particular lab, which by the way you couldn't learn more about, in one of the links in the description below. And so on that note, until we find out something else or until some other experiments, that's pretty much it. Check out RelovinoWinks and the Fermi paradox playlist in the description below. Subscribe, maybe share this with someone who has

learned about space and sciences, come back to learn something else, and maybe support this channel on Patreon by joining Janemovishur or by buying the wonderful present teacher. And in the description, stay wonderful or see you tomorrow and as always, bye bye. I'll see you next time.