How multicellularity evolves? with William Ratcliff

This episode is with William Ratcliff. He is an Associate Professor at the School of Biological Science at Georgia Tech. Will studies the physics that constrains multicellular structures and examines the minute changes in certain yeast cells that allows them to become multicellular. Here we talk about origin of life, emergence of complexity, eukaryogenesis, how cells become multicellular? and major questions regarding how multicellularity evolves. Guest info: Website: https://ratclifflab.biosci.gatech.edu/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/wc_ratcliff?s=20&t=V9HDIs-TNdMJazo02F8v5Q Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wdVRIS0AAAAJ&hl=en Episode links: Website: https://www.reasonwithscience.com/home/how-multicellularity-evolves-with-william-ratcliff Youtube: https://youtu.be/HOrNrg2H5Ok Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0xWzhzWozsnIppGpcN1fNx?si=iMvD48OVSPqxhZTfnxv4CQ Apple podcast: https://podcastsconnect.apple.com/my-podcasts/show/reason-with-science/407cd478-4271-4319-8318-fc378d4e7ccb/episode/how-multicellularity-evolves-with-william-ratcliff/20ca73cb-7550-451a-9dae-84e1c415ebed Google podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9iMjMyNDZlOC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw/episode/MmIyMGYzZTYtMWY3My00M2UxLTk1YzgtNTQ0MDZlZGJmNmQ5?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwio98jQh4n7AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQLA Follow Reason with Science: Website: https://www.reasonwithscience.com/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/reasonwithscience Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5qFLGsPWjL4GAGidmF2nKh Apple podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reason-with-science/id1641776894 Google podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9iMjMyNDZlOC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:00:50 Origin of life 00:09:02 Protocells and Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) 00:11:58 Origin of LUCA 00:14:47 Evolution of life from LUCA 00:20:35 Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes 00:27:44 Semantics of colonies, communities and multicellularity 00:38:25 Kin selection and Group selection debate 00:43:12 Reductionism in science 00:49:32 Strong emergence 00:55:49 Snowflake yeasts 01:11:20 Multicellularity in bacteria 01:14:10 Reproduction in yeasts 01:21:11 Growth regulation in snowflake yeasts 01:27:47 Reproduction of snowflake yeasts 01:34:44 Evolutionary game theory 01:38:34 Michael Levin's work on Xenobots 01:41:56 Darwinian evolution is crucial for multicellular systems to evolve 01:47:01 How cellular functions are regulated in multicellular systems? 01:54:52 Nicole King's work on Choanoflagellates 01:57:19 Polarity in multicellular systems 01:59:32 Syncytia (Multinuclear) cells 02:04:22 Snowflake system and major questions about multicellularity 02:15:09 Reverting multicellularity 02:18:09 Thank you!