The experiment in the press

Newswise 21 Nov 2025 Institutional release

Georgia Tech Professor Awarded John Templeton Foundation Grant

A Georgia Tech Research news release announcing a John Templeton Foundation grant to Ratcliff, with Peter Yunker, on the evolution of cellular agency and of germ-soma specialization.

Georgia Tech original dated 18 Nov 2025; carried by Newswise on 21 Nov 2025.

Quanta Magazine 20 Mar 2025 Independent reporting

How Did Multicellular Life Evolve?

An episode of Quanta's The Joy of Why podcast, published with a full transcript, in which Ratcliff is the interview subject.

Quanta Magazine 2 May 2024 Independent reporting

The Mystery of the Missing Multicellular Prokaryotes

Why bacteria and archaea never evolved complex multicellular bodies. Not a report of a MuLTEE result: Ratcliff appears throughout as a source on the wider question.

The Atlantic 12 May 2023 Independent reporting

One of Evolution's Biggest Moments Was Re-created in a Year

Ed Yong on the 2023 Nature paper, and on how quickly a transition usually thought of as rare happened in the lab.

New York Times 10 May 2023 Independent reporting

An Experiment Repeated 600 Times Finds Hints to Evolution's Secrets

Coverage of the same paper, built around the 600 rounds of daily growth and settling selection that produced millimetre-scale clusters.

Georgia Tech 10 May 2023 Institutional release

A Journey to the Origins of Multicellular Life: Long-Term Experimental Evolution in the Lab

The university's own release for Bozdag et al., “De novo evolution of macroscopic multicellularity,” Nature 617:747–754, issued the day the paper appeared.

Also carried by EurekAlert!, 10 May 2023, and ScienceDaily, 16 May 2023.

Smithsonian 1 Oct 2021 Independent reporting

Evolving Yeast Shows How Complex Life May Have Arisen

A Smart News writeup of the 2021 preprint that became the 2023 Nature paper, by Ben Panko, quoting Ratcliff.

Quanta Magazine 22 Sep 2021 Independent reporting

Single Cells Evolve Large Multicellular Forms in Just Two Years

Also on the 2021 preprint, and the first piece to set the MuLTEE beside Lenski's long-term E. coli experiment.

National Geographic 14 Sep 2021 Independent reporting

Evolving globs of yeast may unlock mysteries of multicellular life

The first major feature on the macroscopic clusters, covering the preprint that became the 2023 Nature paper. It describes clusters that went from weaker than gelatin to as tough as wood, with roughly 450,000 cells in a millimetre-scale cluster.

Georgia Tech 18 May 2021 Institutional release

Did Earth's early rise in oxygen help multicellular life evolve?

The release for Bozdag et al. 2021 in Nature Communications, on the twenty-population oxygen experiment that the MuLTEE grew out of. Strictly aerobic yeast at intermediate oxygen did not evolve larger size, while anaerobic and high-oxygen populations did. Fifteen of the twenty populations, from three of the four treatments, were kept running as the MuLTEE. See the full story →

Issued through EurekAlert!; also carried by ScienceDaily, 19 May 2021.

NASA Astrobiology 18 Jan 2018 Institutional release

Saving Space to Lower Stress in the Evolution of Multicellularity

Snowflake yeast research that preceded the MuLTEE: elongated cells pack more loosely, which lowers the internal stress that fractures a growing cluster.

Quanta Magazine 3 Nov 2015 Independent reporting

Life's Secrets Sought in a Snowflake

An early profile of the snowflake yeast system, two years before the first MuLTEE transfer, when the clusters were still microscopic.