Farming Amoebae Carry Around Detoxifying Food
Friday, April 22, 2016 - 04:50
in Biology & Nature
Humans aren't the only farmers out there. Five years ago, the Queller-Strassmann lab at Rice University, now at Washington University in St. Louis, demonstrated that the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum -- affectionately nicknamed "Dicty" -- can maintain a crop of food bacteria from generation to generation, giving these farmers an advantage when food is scarce.