Since the Victorian era, categorizing the natural world has challenged scientists. No group has presented a challenge as tricky as the protists, the tiny, complex life forms that are neither plants ...

Tsukuba, Japan—Protists (eukaryotes, excluding animals, land plants, and fungi) comprise the bulk of the eukaryotic phylogenetic tree, making their diversity essential to understanding eukaryotic ...

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 ...

Mitochondria are very well known as the powerhouses of the cell. Generally speaking, all eukaryotes, including plants, fungi, and animals, are made of cells that contain mitochondria. These organelles ...

New research has suggested that the ancestors of complex life, or the most ancient eukaryotic cells to have ever existed on ...

To Tom Santangelo, single-celled microorganisms called archaea are like ancient mariners, surviving among the most extreme conditions on Earth, including volcanic vents in the deep ocean. The Colorado ...

Canadian scientists have identified microscopic creatures that are so unlike anything seen before, they had to create an entirely new branch on the evolutionary tree of life to slot them in. A new ...

A lot happened in the hundreds of millions years separating the first and last eukaryotic common ancestors, but when and how most features arose remains a mystery. Eukaryogenesis is broadly defined as ...

Since the Victorian era, categorizing the natural world has challenged scientists. No group has presented a challenge as tricky as the protists, the tiny, complex life forms that are neither plants ...