MuLTEERatcliff Lab · Georgia Tech
A dense field of elongated yeast cells packed edge to edge, every cell outlined in bright cyan, with orange nuclei scattered through roughly a third of them, on black.

Press

The experiment in the press

Coverage of the MuLTEE and of the snowflake yeast system, from independent reporting and institutional releases.

The papers behind the coverage Media contact

Some of these predate the MuLTEE and cover the earlier snowflake yeast work. Each entry notes whether it is independent reporting or an institutional release.

2015–2025

Coverage

  1. 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. No award amount or grant number is given.

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

  2. 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. The most recent long-form popular treatment of the experiment.

  3. 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.

  4. 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 what it means that a transition usually described as rare ran to macroscopic size under a single selective rule.

  5. New York Times 10 May 2023 Independent reporting

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

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

  6. 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. This is the experiment's largest press moment.

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

  7. 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 that paper, by Ben Panko, quoting Ratcliff.

  8. 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. Credits Ozan Bozdag with the anaerobic result and names Eric Libby and Matthew Herron as collaborators.

  9. 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 carries the comparison we still use, a material that starts out weaker than gelatin and ends up with the toughness of wood, and the roughly 450,000 cells in a millimetre-scale cluster. Quotes Ratcliff, Bozdag and Andy Knoll; photographs credited to Ozan Bozdag.

  10. 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, which reports a separate 20-population experiment rather than the MuLTEE. Read past the headline: the effect is not monotonic. Intermediate oxygen suppressed size evolution, while anaerobic and high-oxygen conditions both permitted it, which is why the MuLTEE runs three metabolic treatments. See the history →

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

  11. NASA Astrobiology 18 Jan 2018 Institutional release

    Saving Space to Lower Stress in the Evolution of Multicellularity

    Snowflake yeast biophysics from before the MuLTEE began: elongated cells pack more loosely, which lowers the internal stress that fractures a growing cluster. Credits NASA's Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program; no grant number is given.

  12. Quanta Magazine 3 Nov 2015 Independent reporting

    Life's Secrets Sought in a Snowflake

    The oldest entry here, and the one furthest from the present experiment. An early profile of the snowflake yeast system three years before the first MuLTEE transfer, when the clusters were still microscopic.

More

Podcast and video appearances are on the full press page.

Ratcliff Lab press page →

Media contact

For interviews, background, or a walk-through of how a transfer actually works, write to ratcliff@gatech.edu. Every micrograph on this site was made in the lab, and we are glad to supply high-resolution versions; please ask before reuse.

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