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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
 Posted - 02/05/2009 : 06:37:21
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This is cool. Our Middle-East petroleum freinds provided some rock cores from 635 million years ago and chemical analysis picked up chemicals only known to come from sponges, which are actually simple animals, not plants. Until now evindence for animals came from the fossil record which only recorded them after they evolved hard parts, which was during the Cambrian Explosion some 540 million years ago. But it's been long suspected that animals didn't start out with hard parts and remarkable diversity but must have had a more modest, long term beginning and this new evidence supports that. Get this though, the period before the Cambrian explosion was Snow Ball Earth. So animals evolved in one of the most inhospitable global environments of Earth's history. Yes, cool.
link: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/204/1?rss=1
A Much Earlier Start for Animals
By Phil Berardelli
ScienceNOW Daily News
4 February 2009
Where did all the animals come from? The fossil record is virtually animal-free up until the Cambrian Explosion 540 million years ago, and then--boom--thousands of critters of all shapes and sizes show up. The mystery has plagued scientists for more than a century and a half, beginning with Charles Darwin. Now, with a brilliant bit of detective work, researchers have located our missing ancestors.
The problem with the earliest animals, from a paleontologist's perspective, is that they lacked hard parts. Without bones, beaks, claws, and shells to fossilize, these squishy creatures never became part of the geological record. That's made life difficult for evolutionary biologists. They know that natural selection had to be operating for at least tens of millions of years to give rise to all of the Cambrian critters. Yet where was the evidence that animals had actually been around that long?
The answer lies in the unique molecules they left behind.
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-Chaloobi
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 02/05/2009 : 06:45:53 [Permalink]
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Nice find, 'loobi! It's the beginning of solid conformation of what has been known but unconfirmed since the days of Darwin. Thanks for the read.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 08:05:53 [Permalink]
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Coolio.
Not to devalue the find, but we already had evidences for pre-cambrian life and this is just one more of them. So this find is not as revolutionary as one might think.
But it's still is very cool. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26031 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 08:13:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
Not to devalue the find, but we already had evidences for pre-cambrian life and this is just one more of them. |
Not life, animals. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 08:35:10 [Permalink]
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| Awesome find, I suggest Stephen J Goulds Wonderful Life, which great and is all about the subject. Though this does make another dent in his version of the big E. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 08:37:16 [Permalink]
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Sorry, my comment was a bit vague.
We already had evidences indicating eukaryotic and multi-cellular organisms.
For example, you will notice mention of amoeba, which are monocellular animals.
But, yes, we already had fossils older than the Cambrian explosion, in the Ediacaran period, for example.
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 10:40:43 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
Sorry, my comment was a bit vague.
We already had evidences indicating eukaryotic and multi-cellular organisms.
For example, you will notice mention of amoeba, which are monocellular animals.
But, yes, we already had fossils older than the Cambrian explosion, in the Ediacaran period, for example.
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Yes there were fossils of living things, yes it was known life started earlier, but no there were not fossils of multicellular animals. That's all this find is about, just observational evidence of something that most thought must be the case. |
-Chaloobi
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 10:41:44 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Nice find, 'loobi! It's the beginning of solid conformation of what has been known but unconfirmed since the days of Darwin. Thanks for the read.
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Known but unconfirmed? |
-Chaloobi
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13481 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 10:42:18 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
Sorry, my comment was a bit vague.
We already had evidences indicating eukaryotic and multi-cellular organisms.
For example, you will notice mention of amoeba, which are monocellular animals.
But, yes, we already had fossils older than the Cambrian explosion, in the Ediacaran period, for example.
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Right. I was at first confused by the OP. But it's a great find given the relative rarity of Precambrian fossils. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 11:28:51 [Permalink]
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Yes, and it is one more thread in the tapistry of pre-cambrian life. One more stone on the grave of creationism.
It's always good.
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 11:52:34 [Permalink]
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| I don't know what you guys are so confused about. Animals, man. Animals! Not "life" or "protozoans" or even "non-plant living thingys." The OP was very clear. Sheesh. |
-Chaloobi
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 12:51:06 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
Originally posted by filthy
Nice find, 'loobi! It's the beginning of solid conformation of what has been known but unconfirmed since the days of Darwin. Thanks for the read.
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Known but unconfirmed?
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Poor wording on my part. I should have said: "at that age."
Precambrian fossils are at least known, if not very well due to most of them being trace fossils -- about the best you can expect from soft-bodied invertebrates. The Burgess Shales, aged about 525 myo is filled with them.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13481 Posts |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 15:45:20 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
I don't know what you guys are so confused about. Animals, man. Animals! Not "life" or "protozoans" or even "non-plant living thingys." The OP was very clear. Sheesh.
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Clear but not entirely correct as they have already been animal discovered in older rocks, albeit in small number. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2009 : 20:09:11 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
Originally posted by chaloobi
I don't know what you guys are so confused about. Animals, man. Animals! Not "life" or "protozoans" or even "non-plant living thingys." The OP was very clear. Sheesh.
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Clear but not entirely correct as they have already been animal discovered in older rocks, albeit in small number.
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Hey, I'm just the messenger. If the article's wrong, write the authors. |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 02/05/2009 20:11:03 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 02/07/2009 : 15:32:35 [Permalink]
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For Aig's take on this, click and scroll down.
"It could almost be the plot of an evolutionary Indiana Jones adventure: deep beneath the sands of Arabia, lost and hidden for millennia, lay a secret molecule that transcends what we think we know.
The actual news is a little less glamorous, of course: with the help of Petroleum Development Oman, scientists led by University of California–Riverside geochemist Gordon Love have discovered a strange molecule that challenges the idea of the Cambrian Explosion. (The Cambrian Explosion is the puzzling episode in the evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record that shows a sudden “explosion” of life-forms in a brief period of geologic time.)
Since the supposed “earliest animals” lack hard parts, they aren't easy to find in the fossil record, which has “made life difficult for evolutionary biologists,” ScienceNOW writer Phil Berardelli jokes. But Love's team decided to look for the presence of a molecule called 24-IPC that is produced only by a class of animals including modern sponges. Find it, they hypothesized, and they may find the evidence for pre–Cambrian Explosion animal life that evolutionists already accept. (By faith, that is; Berardelli writes that the scientists “know that natural selection had to be operating for at least tens of millions of years to give rise to all of the Cambrian critters.”)"
Or better yet, read the whole thing; it's pretty good this week  . They also mention the recent find of the pregnant Maiacetus inuus fossil.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Evidence For Pre-Cambrian Animals
