Multicellular biscuits

[Loki]

A paper has been published in Nature reporting multicellular fossils from Gabon, dated at 2.1 billion years old. This is about 1.5 billion years earlier than previously thought (600 million years, or just before the cambrian explosion).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_a...t/10471599.stm

Its at plenty of other sites too if you want more info.

The interesting thing for me appart from the age is that its reported they have membrane-bound nuclei. So i'm guessing they aren't just truly multicellular organisms but eucaryotes to boot. Cool.

[robertkd]

thanks Loki that is interesting ant the tie in with significant changes in oxygen level, not that I know shyt about this but suspect the oxygen levels allowed changes to the cell functions not possible in higher CO2 level environments??

[Loki]

Sorry, not really up on the details there. My general understanding is that early life developed in a reducing, oxygen poor environment. Oxygen at the levels we have today would be toxic for it. This can be seen in some of the surviving structures. For example RuBisCo, the enzyme which catalyses carbon fixation and hence photosynthesis has much lower efficiency in oxygen rich environments.

Pushing multicellular life back another 1.5 billion years is a major change in the time-lines and it will be interesting how this changes the understanding of early life.

If these fossils can indeed be correlated with increasing levels of oxygen in the environment then there would be a flow through effect on our general understanding of evolutionary history, but i'd need to hear it from people with much better knowledge of the areas involved.

I fancy I can hear the doors slamming on a couple more gaps.

[Justtristo]

Originally Posted by Loki

A paper has been published in Nature reporting multicellular fossils from Gabon, dated at 2.1 billion years old. This is about 1.5 billion years earlier than previously thought (600 million years, or just before the cambrian explosion).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_a...t/10471599.stm

Its at plenty of other sites too if you want more info.

The interesting thing for me appart from the age is that its reported they have membrane-bound nuclei. So i'm guessing they aren't just truly multicellular organisms but eucaryotes to boot. Cool.

The earlier origins of multicellular life would make sense why the fossils we find from the Cambrian explosion were so well developed. It is likely they did not have the sort of bodies which fossilize well.

The Cambrian explosion was one of the great unsolved questions in evolution for ages and a target for Creationists.

[Sir Patrick Crocodile]

Hopefully the creotards won't use this as "evidence" for creation.

[Loki]

The creotards have been asserting (I won't say using, their usage is very poor) the "suddenness" of the Cambrian explosion as "evidence" for creation for a long time.

For example this woo, this woo, this woo and this woo.

Pushing multicellular life back from 600 to 2.1 bya rather diminishes their argument. I can't see them getting anything positive out of this, though they may well try.

It does add amunition to the arguments of science and reason, making the Cambrian less a rapid radiation and more a measured increase in diversity. Lots more data needed though.

I expect most creationists will simply carry on as usual and ignore this and any other evidence which comes along, therefore creating a whole new strategy for them they've never used before.

[wearestardust]

As it happens I'm reading a book just at the moment that hypothesises that the Cambrian explosion was a result of evolution of eyes, leading to active predation and more competition and hence more evolutionary variation.

I gather from what I've read so far that the move from simple to complex multicellular organisms happened in the precambrian, but the cambrian explosion both greatly increased diversity and eliminated the precambrian species.

[atheist_angel]

Originally Posted by Loki

So i'm guessing they aren't just truly multicellular organisms but eucaryotes to boot. Cool.

Looks that way... but they're afraid to suggest it though. Hopefully more evidence, if anymore still exists, will turn up oneday to support it. If it's true, it'd change a lot.

Originally Posted by Loki

The creotards have been asserting (I won't say using, their usage is very poor) the "suddenness" of the Cambrian explosion as "evidence" for creation for a long time.

For example this woo, this woo, this woo and this woo.

Tell me those are poe.

[Caio]

Awesome, thanks Loki

I think i hear another nail being hammered in...of course the cerotards will continue with their usual humbug nonsense, but their future looks like its heading for its own K-T boundary...