Category: Uncategorized

ONGOING EVENTS. “Mass extinctions happen. The fossil record provides ample evidence that even the more widespread and species-rich clades, ecosystems, and biogeographic provinces are not infinitely resilient.” http://www.pnas.org/content/98/10/5393.full/Donnie) View in LinkedIn

CONCLUSION. “I would not go far wrong in saying that the most dramatic evolutionary effects of mass extinctions can be epitomized in just four words: they remove successful incumbents.” http://www.pnas.org/content/98/10/5393.full/Donnie) View in LinkedIn

BOOM TIME. “The significant increase in standing diversity began approximately 500 million years ago. During the Ordovician, marine family diversity tripled and those clades that came to dominate the next 250 million years radiated.” (See Figure 1). https://lnkd.in/eVq28Qh View in LinkedIn

MOLECULAR FITNESS. "It has been suggested that "...some autocatalytic sets will reproduce more rapidly than others and hence will have higher Darwinian fitness" and, therefore, "we have evolution without a genome." https://lnkd.in/euzMX5X View in LinkedIn

REPRODUCTION IN NATURE is not limited to organisms, nor to cells, but also the very organelles within cells, such as the mitochondrion, chloroplast and nucleus, all of which originated in an ancient foreign engulfment. Their reproduction is rather independent from the rest of the organism's cells. View in LinkedIn

GROWTH OF POPULATIONS. "Originally autocatalytic sets of polymers were introduced to explain how self-organization could provide a complex system upon which natural selection could act." https://lnkd.in/euzMX5X View in LinkedIn

MITOCHONDRIA have a very anomalous reproductive life, breaking the rules of Mendel. In large part because they are semi-autonomous, having been derived from an engulfed bacteria many millions of years ago, and today exist in a highly streamlined form with most of their genes having been transferred to the host nucleus. View in LinkedIn

EVOLUTION BEFORE GENES. "Our current understanding of evolution is so tightly linked to template-dependent replication of DNA and RNA molecules that the old idea from Oparin of a self-reproducing 'garbage bag' ('coacervate') of chemicals that predated fully-fledged cell-like entities seems to be farfetched to most scientists today." https://lnkd.in/euzMX5X View in LinkedIn

REPRODUCTION IN NATURE is not limited to organisms, nor to cells, but also the very organelles within cells, such as the mitochondrion, chloroplast and nucleus, all of which originated in an ancient foreign engulfment. Their reproduction is rather independent from the rest of the organism's cells. View in LinkedIn

DURABLE AUTOCATALYSIS. "A unifying theme in both camps has been self-sustained autocatalysis: Nature's ability to generate copies of a given entity leading to multiplication. It boosted the concentration of required molecules in Darwin's 'warm little pond' (or any relevant environment for chemical evolution), and allowed the increase of replicating (reproducing) units in a geometrical progression that makes the 'survival of the fittest' possible." https://lnkd.in/euzMX5X View in LinkedIn