What made 2024 the year of Mr. Plankton, however, was not its existence but its behavior . In lab cultures at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, researchers noticed that when the water temperature rose by two degrees Celsius, Mr. Plankton activated a dormant set of genes. It produced a transparent, silica-reinforced cyst, then split into motile spores that could remain viable in air for 72 hours.
The discovery made headlines in Nature and Science simultaneously. By June, Mr. Plankton was a global phenomenon. Unlike the giant viruses or the bizarre Asgard archaea, this creature was relatable: it was a plankton, a drifter, the humblest of life forms. Yet it carried the secrets of survival in its core. MR. PLANKTON -2024-
“It’s evolving before our eyes,” said Dr. Marcus Thorne, a biologist who live-tweeted his experiments. “Mr. Plankton is preparing for atmospheric dispersal. It’s hedging against ocean warming by learning to fly.” What made 2024 the year of Mr
December arrived. Time named Mr. Plankton its “Symbol of the Year,” a departure from the usual Person of the Year. The cover showed a photomicrograph of the creature’s spore, glowing gold against black, with the caption: “The Future Is Drifting.” Plankton activated a dormant set of genes
But the scientific community grew uneasy. In September, a team in Tokyo discovered that Mr. Plankton’s unknown genes—the UNK-2024-A cluster—encoded a ribozyme capable of editing the RNA of other organisms. In co-culture with common diatoms, Mr. Plankton didn’t kill them. It reprogrammed them, turning the diatoms into factories for a novel sugar polymer that only Mr. Plankton could digest.
In the spring of 2024, the RV Calypso Dawn drifted over the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest part of the Atlantic. Chief Microbiologist Dr. Elena Mirov stared at her screen, watching a cascade of genetic data that shouldn’t exist.
