Darwin's dissenter

glsA gene product, which is required for asymmetric division, and the regA gene product, which is required for terminal differentiation of somatic cells. More recently, they have also been used to show that the invA gene encodes a novel kinesin that drives inversion. What can Volvox tell us about the evolutionary origins of multicellularity and cellular differentiation? The family Volvocaceae, in which Volvox is placed, contains several genera of green flagellates that are intermediate in size and complexity between unicellular Chlamydomonas and Volvox. Molecular phylogenetic analysis indicates that the family is monophyletic, and shares a common ancestor with Chlamydomonas that existed about 50 million years ago. Thus, these algae provide an unrivalled opportunity to analyze a genetic pathway leading from unicellularity to multicellularity with a complete division of labor. Is there a Volvox genome project? Yes. One bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) library has been produced, a second is in preparation; sequencing of the complete 10 8 base pair V. carteri genome is underway. The Natural History Museum in London is currently celebrating the life of Richard Owen, the naturalist who established the museum and was born 200 years ago last month, but for all his achievements, he was implacably opposed to Darwin's work. Owen had originally enjoyed a working relationship with the younger Charles Darwin, but as a devout Christian, Owen saw creation as a series of experiments by a Creator, and he was outraged by Darwin's On the Origin of Species. He is famous for his creation of the word 'dinosaur' and a 25-year campaign to create one of the world's great museums. He secured his reputation as a palaeontologist for his reconstruction of the first archaeopteryx and as an anatomist for the identification of the duck-billed platypus as a mammal.