Evolutionary biologist (Multicellularity & social evolution). Prof. at Georgia Tech & Director of the QBioS PhD program.
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialWoah!
Will Ratcliff
@wcratcliff.bsky.social
@wcratcliff.bsky.social@wcratcliff.bsky.socialAs an avid podcast consumer: hell yes!!
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialPerfect!
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialThese would be simple by modern definitions- no evidence of morphologies created through cellular specialization, tissue grade complexity, or adaptations to overcome size-based biophysical constraints. These aren't 'fixed' definitions, but are what people tend to think about.
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialOpus 5.5 is next level for it!
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialThanks! And yeah, I think that is right!
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialAbsolutely! So much work to be done, and lots of room for new ideas!
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialI’ll see the intuition for complex McDonald’s is that they are large enough to have an inside and outside as well as enough developmental regulation to create a non-trivial patterning.
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialI’m not sure. send me a paper or two?
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialI’m afraid I don’t have time right now to write a full response but stay tuned because I am working on another review paper which cover covers this, at least at a high level!
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialLong answer there- honestly it would take me writing another review paper to really answer it. But yes, I have a hypothesis for why complexity is eukaryote specific and why arose in the neo Proterozoic. I think it’s very possible to evolve complex multicellularity without aerobic respiration.
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialI'd take you over half the other superheroes on my marvel dream team
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialhaha, wow, deep cut! I will have to chastise Claude about that error. :)
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialToo many people argue about whether someone else's definition is right or not: but as @matthewherron.bsky.social likes to say, definitions cannot be right or wrong, only more or less useful. Hope that was helpful!
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialI think a highly integrated colony of individual cells IS a multicellular Darwinian Individual (for this, I really Peter Godfrey Smith's Darwinian Individuality framework), but as with all definitions, the key is to be clear with what you mean by it.
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialDefinitions are always a bit subjective (and this def. is!), but here we're using Andy Knoll's 2011 definition: differentiated tissues that move O2, nutrients & signals in bulk, beating the limits of diffusion. Only 5 lineages have done it: animals, land plants, red & brown algae, and fungi.
@mattolm.bsky.socialReposted by @wcratcliff.bsky.socialMy final postdoc project is out today in Nature! We show microbes co-migrated with humans out of Africa; three independent methods agree, and timing matches archaeological / genetic evidence (Fig. 4c). Seeing Fig. 4c for 1st time was one of my most memorable "eureka" moments! doi.org/10.1038/s415...
@joshuasweitz.bsky.socialReposted by @wcratcliff.bsky.socialArithmetic in the "New Golden Age of Science" at NSF:
Reduce $600M in STEM funding between FY25 and FY26
grantwitness.org/nsf/analyses...
Propose to reduce NSF GRFP fellowships by $180M in FY27
nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/FY-202...
Declare "success" w/a $100M "push" for US scientists.
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialThe drawing is all done in python, amazingly, in code written by Claude. There were indeed many iterations but more as an advisor than an artist!
@wcratcliff.bsky.socialAll rendered on my laptop in code written by Claude and run in python. This movie is >9000 frames! It takes about 30 mins to draw this on my 1000 dollar MacBook Air. Wild eh?