The first complex cell may have had dozens of nuclei instead of one

By Michael Marshall

We may have imagined our most distant ancestor wrongly. The first complex cell may have been bigger and even more internally complex than anyone suspected – and that may have helped it survive.

Over a billion years ago, evolution gave rise to the first complex cell. It is often pictured as something like an amoeba or a white blood cell: a roughly spherical blob with a single packet of DNA at its core.

But a new study argues that is wrong. Instead, it …