How we can learn from our 1.6 billion-year-old ancestors
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Max Verworn, a German biologist, made an observation in 1889: Paramecia (or “slipper animals”), single cell organism that are classed as ciliates, swim upwards. Bacteria, green algae and of course plants and animals react to the Earth’s gravitational pull. More than 30 hypotheses were put forward to explain how paramecia managed to orientate themselves - quite an achievement for such “primitive” single cell organisms.
Paramecia gather at the top of a volumetric flask!
About 40 years ago, using electrophysiological methods, the structures of receptors in cell membranes and the movement of some ciliates were explained. Today, our 1.6 billion-year-old ancestors are used as model organisms in our endeavour of explaining what mechanical, electrophysiological and biochemical effects gravity has on a single cell.