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Clues to Cambrian Explosion may Make ET Life More Likely
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Michael Watson Send message Joined: 7 Feb 08 Posts: 1383 Credit: 2,098,506 RAC: 5 |
The earliest life on Earth, known as prokaryotes, was quite simple, and remained so for billions of years. The so-called Cambrian Explosion, about 600 million years ago, in which more complex forms of life quickly arose, came relatively late in the history of life on our planet. It's been wondered what was behind this delay. It's even been argued on this basis that the transition from simple to complex forms of life is very improbable, and, so, that complex life is rare in the universe, at large. Some new research finds that oxygen was very scarce, before the Cambrian, and that this may have delayed the beginnings of Eukaryotes, as more complex life is called. These more complex forms of life require a good deal of oxygen to flourish. It appears that they may have done so as soon as conditions allowed it. This seems to suggest that complex life may be common, throughout the universe. It's believed that oxygen, slowly accumulated in Earth's atmosphere as a waste product of simpler life forms, and then, perhaps more rapidly, as the breakup of the supercontinents into smaller land masses, more like those we know today, released additional oxygen into the air. An article giving more details on this is linked, below: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/darwins-dilemma-solved/story?id=26791766&singlePage=true |
anniet Send message Joined: 2 Feb 14 Posts: 7105 Credit: 1,577,368 RAC: 75 |
Thank you Michael! :) VERY interesting... I wonder if anyone's told Brian Cox...? :) |
musicplayer Send message Joined: 17 May 10 Posts: 2430 Credit: 926,046 RAC: 0 |
So the Cambrian Explosion is then supposed to be have been an asteroid impact then? Or was it rather something that took off her on earth instead? Please explain this to me. |
William Rothamel Send message Joined: 25 Oct 06 Posts: 3756 Credit: 1,999,735 RAC: 4 |
Sufficient Oxygen to support higher life-form development took a long time to build up to the required level. Algae in the primordial oceans produced Oxygen as a byproduct of their "exhalations". |
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