Daniel Morse holds a species of marine sponge commonly known as Venus's flower basket. (Credit: Gregg Segal)

In his beachfront office overlooking the Santa Barbara channel, Daniel Morse carefully unwraps one of his prized specimens. An intricate latticework of gleaming glass fibers, it looks like a piece of abstract art or a detailed architectural model of a skyscraper. But it's actually the skeleton of one of the most primitive multicellular organisms still in existence--a species of marine sponge commonly known as Venus's flower basket. Morse, a molecu­lar biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, wants to know how such a simple creature can assemble such a complicated structure. And then he wants to put that knowledge to work, making exotic structures of his own.

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