On the Origin of Life and Biodiversity

Newly discovered fossils from a quarter billion years ago provide a new narrative on the origin of life and biodiversity. The evidence is of a hosted, random genetic reassortment of unicellular DNA into cells coding for biodiverse multicellular life forms. The life forms spawned by this process serve as the starting point for evolution. The life forms presented range from unicellular giants to forerunners of dinosaurs and mammals. The preservation of the entire life form, including soft tissue, allows the specimens to be autopsied (sectioned), which provides an anatomical roadmap of the transition from unicellular life to multicellular life. The book identifies a new suspect that had the means, motive, and opportunity to host this reassortment process. Chapter Overview: Chapter 1: The Great Explosion of Life. Chapter 1 provides a brief history of the three explosions of life (prokaryotic, eukaryotic, and multicellular eukaryotic) and their underlying molecular biology. Chapter 2: The New Hard Evidence. The autopsied fossils provides an anatomical roadmap of the transition from unicellular to multicellular life. This includes the origins of motility/propulsion, vision, smell, skin, claws / paws, origins of bone, predators, early reproduction, as well as pre terrestrial and pre dinosaur features. Chapter 3: The Perpetrators of multicellular life. Molecular biology on the self assembling nature of eukaryotic cell walls is presented. Next, the mechanistic principles of creating a new cell are presented: 1) Cells aggregated in water, 2) Shear forces or structures capable of rupturing cell membranes to release intracellular contents, and 3) A confined space where the reassembling lipid bilayers can encapsulate a batch of the ambient genetic slurry. Opportunity: The chapter hones in on a family of calcium secreting filter feeders (CSFFs) that had the means, motive and opportunity to do this. They appeared during both the Cambrian and Permian events, establishing they had the opportunity. Means: These CSFFs were unicellular eukaryotes that lived in colonies and secreted calcium carbonate as a skeletal matrix, channeling ocean water to obtain nutrients. Coastal oceans contain around 1 million suspended cells per ml of water. Four different CSFFs, with 5 different structures are evaluated. Fluid dynamics (velocity acceleration and turbulence) is combined with molecular biology to show they had the means to shear open cells and also provided a confined space for reassembling cell membranes to take a gulp of the ambient genetic slurry. Motive: The motive was to obtain intracellular nutrients (proteins, nucleotides) for the feeding colony. The unintended consequence was the hosting of a genetic reassortment process capable of creating unimaginably biodiverse life forms. The chapter concludes with a review of this process for consistency with both known molecular biology and the fossil evidence presented in the book. Chapter 4: The Fate of the Perpetrators. CSFFs disappear as a new ecosystem emerges. Several causes of this are apparent from a subset of the fossils and are reviewed. Chapter 5: Unicellular Giants and Indeterminate Life Forms. Chapter 5 covers life forms that never made it into earth’s playbook of life. Being created viable was no guarantee of withstanding the test of time. Chapter 6: Summary and Conclusions. Chapter 6 summarizes the story told by these fossils, how it provides a novel perspective on the origin of multicellular life on earth, how earth repopulated after one extinction event with a new cast of characters that did not resemble what lived prior to the extinction event, and suggests how life may develop on other planets.