John M. Archibald is in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4H7, Canada, and also at the Institute for Comparative Genomics, Dalhousie ...

All modern multicellular life — all life that any of us regularly see — is made of cells with a knack for compartmentalization. Recent discoveries are revealing how the first eukaryote got its start.

For billions of years after the origin of life, the only living things on Earth were tiny, primitive cells resembling today’s bacteria. But then, more than 1.5 billion years ago, something remarkable ...