Turns out that even splittling in half is a bottleneck of some kind - not as good as a single cell, it's true, but still advantageous. Also, Simon's flatworms have remarkable genetic diversity for organisms that should be identical. There's more going on there than we realised!
July 5, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Turns out that even splittling in half is a bottleneck of some kind - not as good as a single cell, it's true, but still advantageous. Also, Simon's flatworms have remarkable genetic diversity for organisms that should be identical. There's more going on there than we realised!
Organisms can avoid their own cells being selfish (i.e. cancer) by reproducing via a single-cell bottleneck (i.e. egg). But flatworms reproduce by splitting into 2! How do they avoid cancer?
July 5, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Organisms can avoid their own cells being selfish (i.e. cancer) by reproducing via a single-cell bottleneck (i.e. egg). But flatworms reproduce by splitting into 2! How do they avoid cancer?