This article linked to https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06170-w > Lost world of complex life and the late rise of the eukaryotic crown
Cheers. That looks more interesting than the other headline too.
Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
11–15 of 15 posts
Re: Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
#12Some context: between 1.8 and 0.8 billion (milliard) years ago, the Earth went through a period colloquially called the "Boring Billion", when tectonically and climatically almost nothing happened. Evolutionarily, however, this was the period when multicellularity and sexual reproduction developed. I guess that those developments were really complicated, so it took a lot of time before evolution chanced upon them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boring_Billion
https://youtu.be/0sbwUeTyDb0 (recommended video and series)
Re: Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
#13Some context: between 1.8 and 0.8 billion (milliard) years ago, the Earth went through a period colloquially called the "Boring Billion", when tectonically and climatically almost nothing happened. Evolutionarily, however, this was the period when multicellularity and sexual reproduction developed. I guess that those developments were really complicated, so it took a lot of time before evolution chanced upon them. ht…
I've read somewhere that we're the second wave of multi-cellular organisms that evolved on Earth - coming from worms, fish, tetrapods, etc. But there's evidence of an earlier evolution of multi-cellularity, those poor things dying out and leaving very few fossils.
Re: Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
#14Some many chances for early life to have hung on, delayed change, stalled evolution. These early organisms hung on for 100's of millions of years, dominating and out-competing later forms until gradually they were in turn out-competed. Same with Dinosaurs! They dominated for 200M years. But for a chance asteroid we could still be a planet of dinosaurs. No sign of them giving up in the fossil record. We find other pla…
>> No sign of them giving up in the fossil record.
Actually there are signs in the fossil record that dinosaurs weren't doing very well even before the K–Pg extinction.
Re: Scientists discover ancient 'lost world' that rewrites history of life on Earth
#15Some context: between 1.8 and 0.8 billion (milliard) years ago, the Earth went through a period colloquially called the "Boring Billion", when tectonically and climatically almost nothing happened. Evolutionarily, however, this was the period when multicellularity and sexual reproduction developed. I guess that those developments were really complicated, so it took a lot of time before evolution chanced upon them. ht…
I've read somewhere that we're the second wave of multi-cellular organisms that evolved on Earth - coming from worms, fish, tetrapods, etc. But there's evidence of an earlier evolution of multi-cellularity, those poor things dying out and leaving very few fossils.
Maybe you are referring to the Ediacaran period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ediacaran_biota , which happened a bit later. Something like it can have happened before that as well, but that is more the subject of current research like in the featured article.