Exploring germ-soma differentiation in Volvox

摘要

As we sat at the bowrail sipping Bloody Marys in the early morning fog 30 years ago, we had the feeling of being suspended in space and time. With the engines of the Delta Queen - the last authentic sternwheeler on the Mississippi river - working at full throttle, the downstream rush of the fall flood waters was so powerful that our upstream movement was barely perceptible. We had planned this trip months earlier, just as a weekend immersion in river nostalgia. But the timing turned out to be perfect: it provided us three days away from ringing telephones and fretting students, and a wonderful opportunity to discuss our long-range scientific goals in a leisurely manner, and to decide which path to take at the fork in the road that we had now reached.