Electrical signalling over long distances is an efficient way of achieving cell-to-cell
communication in living organisms. In plants, the phloem can be considered as a 'green …

In claiming that plants have consciousness,'plant neurobiologists' have consistently glossed
over the remarkable degree of structural and functional complexity that the brain had to …

All living cells interact dynamically with a constantly changing world. Eukaryotes, in
particular, evolved radically new ways to sense and react to their environment. These …

Much of our current knowledge on the mechanisms by which Ca2+ signals are generated in
photosynthetic eukaryotes comes from studies of a relatively small number of model species …

Nervous systems evolved around 560 million years ago to coordinate and empower animal
bodies. Ctenophores–one of the earliest-branching lineages—are thought to share a few …

Action potentials (APs) belong to long-distance signals in plants. They fulfill the all-or-none
law, propagate without decrement and their generation is limited by refractory periods. The …

Eukaryotic cells convert external stimuli into membrane depolarization, which in turn triggers
effector responses such as secretion and contraction. Here, we put forward an evolutionary …

Paramecium is a unicellular organism that swims in fresh water by beating thousands of
cilia. When it is stimulated (mechanically, chemically, optically, thermally…), it often swims …

A fundamental requirement of all eukaryotes is the ability to translocate protons across
membranes. This is critical in bioenergetics, for compartmentalized metabolism, and to …

Phytoplankton sinking is an important property that can determine community composition in
the photic zone and material loss to the deep ocean. To date, studies of diatom suspension …