Biologists are learning that to understand life, we need to understand teams. Your body is composed of a series of teams. Only half the cells in your body are human. The other half are bacterial, viral, and fungal. We used to think that these non-human cells were invaders. It turns out they are just part of the team. Knocking them out (be careful with those antibiotics!) can make you sick or affect your ability to think clearly.

Even if we just look at human cells, we see a team! Our bodies are composed of millions of cells, each performing a specialized task that in aggregate allow us to move through the world in powerful ways. By having cells that specialize in perceiving light, supporting thinking, or processing food, our bodies have the capacity to do amazing things. The history of animals and plants, from dogs and cats to wildflowers, is fundamentally the story of how individual cells learned to cooperate and form a team.