“So they’re kind of like dark matter,” said paleontologist David Jablonski of the University of Chicago about the sanctuaries, the “refugia” that have never been found in the fossil record, but sheltered the shell-shocked and decimated species of Earth’s past mass extinctions until they were able to repopulate the planet in ensuing eons.
It’s been said that the tardigrade, an eight-legged microscopic creature –the most resilient form of life on our planet, that can exist for up to 30 years without food or water and endure temperature extremes up to 150 degrees Celsius– will exist until the Sun dies.
“The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe,” observes physicist Michio Kaku. The neocortex, observed Carl Sagan is where “matter is transformed into consciousness.” Located deep in the brain’s center, the subcortex, the most evolutionarily ancient part of our brain, processes everything from our basic senses to long-term memories.
“Is the existence of life on Earth a lucky fluke or an inevitable consequence of the laws of nature? Is it simple for life to emerge on a newly formed planet, or is it the virtually impossible product of a long series of unlikely events? asks Nobel Prize laureate and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Jack Szostak. “Advances in fields as disparate as astronomy, planetary science and chemistry now hold promise that answers to such profound questions may be around the corner. If life turns out to have emerged multiple times in our galaxy, as scientists are hoping to discover, the path to it cannot be so hard. Moreover, if the route from chemistry to biology proves simple to traverse, the universe could be teeming with life.”
“Human blood is a testament to life’s origin in the ocean,” observed marine biologist Jacques Cousteau, “its chemical composition is nearly identical to that of sea-water.” New research funded by NASA appears to confirm Cousteau’s insight. Scientists have identified a process that might have been key in producing the first organic molecules on Earth about 4 billion years ago, before the origin of life. The process, which is similar to what might have occurred in some ancient underwater hydrothermal vents, may also have relevance to the search for life elsewhere in the universe. (more…)
For about half of Earth’s 4.6 billion-year existence, the atmosphere contained only carbon dioxide and nitrogen, with no oxygen. But this changed when cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, started producing the first oxygen using nitrogenase, which led to the Great Oxidation Event, fueling the evolution of life on Earth.
