Push a sponge through a sieve, cell by cell, and it can rebuild itself

In 1907, biologist H.V. Wilson separated a living sponge into individual cells by squeezing it through fine silk mesh. Left in seawater, the scattered cells crawled back together and reorganised themselves into a functioning sponge, one of the earliest demonstrations that some animals have no fixed, permanent body plan at the cellular level.

— Henry Van Peters Wilson, On Some Phenomena of Coalescence and Regeneration in Sponges — Journal of Experimental Zoology, 1907

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