A new idea about the origin of complex life turns current theories inside out. In the open access journalBMC Biology, cousins Buzz and David Baum explain their 'inside-out' theory of how eukaryotic cells, which all multicellular life - including us - are formed of, might have evolved. Scien...
Eventually, these simple life forms split and began to evolve separately. All animals, plants, and fungi trace back to this time. It’s difficult to pinpoint what order and the exact way this occurred. When did multicellular organisms first appear? Around 900 million years ago multicellular lif...
If only one of these controlling factors is beyond a certain limit, life cannot evolve or it disappears. In this paper, we explore the relationship between the evolutionary development of the Earth's magnetic field in relation with the Earth's cooling, the solar ionizing radiation and the ...
That theory, the “Oxygen Control Hypothesis,” suggests that the size of these early multicellular organisms was limited by the depth to which oxygen could diffuse into their bodies. The hypothesis makes a simple prediction that has been highly influential within both evolutionary biology and ...
Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality (ETI) have been responsible for the major transitions in levels of selection and individuality in natural history, such as the origins of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, multicellular organisms, and eusocial insects. The integrated hierarchical organization of li...
to the evolution of the first diffuse (non-centralized) nervous systems in multicellular organisms (in hydra and jellyfish-like creatures) around 600-700 million years ago to the precursors of centralized nervous systems in primitive worm-like creatures in the Cambrian period, beginning almos...
Spores contain a single cell, whereas aseedcontains a multicellular, fertilised embryo that is protected from drying out by a tough coat. These extra features took another 150 million years to evolve, whereupon the first seed-bearing plants emerged. So plants came first, by a long way. ...
Sponges, filter-feeding organisms often anchored to rocks or the sea floor, were the first animals to evolve around 600 million years ago. Scientists theorize thatsponges arose from colonies of single-celled organismsthat eventually evolved into multicellular animals, with groups of cells evolving into...
Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality (ETI) have been responsible for the major transitions in levels of selection and individuality in natural history, such as the origins of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, multicellular organisms, and eusocial insects. The integrated hierarchical organization of li...