Life on Earth started in the water.
Think about it. Originally all creatures lived in a 3 dimensional world brimming with food, reduced gravitational forces, and a more consistent environment.
Modern organisms like 2 ton Great White Sharks can get away with having slower metabolisms, they don’t worry about wasting stored water to expel waste, and simply absorb dissolved Oxygen straight from the water.
We homo escapeons have to replicate this procedure in reverse with fancy schmancy moisture lined lungs.
Before anything could live on land there was a bit of a problem. Originally our atmosphere started out as a thin, toxic, mixture of Hydrogen, Carbon Monoxide, Ammonia and Methane. Mmmm!
Volcanoes were churning out ash and lava and lightning and powerful Ultraviolet Rays bombarded the planet. Oddly enough all of these combined ingredients were necessary to create complex molecules such as sugars, amino and nucleic acids which are the building blocks of proteins.
From this primordial soup arose the famous DNA featured on every episode of CSI which has two life changing qualities… it can blueprint and manufacture amino acids and replicate itself. Voila, Bacteria!
Some Solar-powered Bacteria changed their diet from chomping on Carbon to photosynthesizing their own food and acquired Hydrogen from water instead of volcanic gas.
These cyanophytes or blue-greens were the highest form of life on earth for Millions and Millions of years and as luck would have it their waste product was Oxygen.
Oxygen formed the Ozone layer that buffers the planet from the devastating effects of Ultraviolet Rays and created the nifty, little, atmosphere that Al Gore is so worried about these days.
The rest, as they say, is History.
All of us owe our very existence to Millions upon Millions of year’s worth of Bacterial ‘Farting’!
Life is a Gas.
whoaaaaa Im FIRST!
ReplyDeleteKeshi.
**Millions upon Millions of year’s worth of Bacterial ‘Farting’!
ReplyDeleteewwwwww HE LOL!
Keshi.
keshiroo,
ReplyDeleteIt is sort of a gross metaphor but it is also an amazing occurence, the odds of which defy calculation.
This entire procedure, coupled with the unimaginable vastness of an inhospitable Universe, is so incomprehensible that it forces us to talk about celebrities, watch sporting events, and collect shiny things.
oh man...i feel so insignificant now.
ReplyDeleteAnd you're comparing this evolutionary happenstance to my post asking what people peruse when they poop?
ReplyDeleteLife IS a gas.
The earth is only 6,000 years old...and that's final!
ReplyDeleteGod said it, I believe it, and that settles it!
Now if I could only 'splain why that there devil would want to be trickin' us by puttin' all them dinosaur bones in the dirt. Hmmmmm...
Wow!
ReplyDeletePoop at WW's blog and farts on yours.
I feel so very much at home.
Thank you, HE.
ReplyDeleteGosh, now I'm going to have to do a bodily functions post over at my blog. Well, ever since I put up the colonoscopy photos a couple years ago I think that exempts me forever. Heheh.
ReplyDeleteI just did a post on my toes...so I guess I'm in good company.
ReplyDeleteOh cmon Laurie...your post on gel bicycle seats was a little closer to the mark than your toes...
ReplyDeleteAnd where's HE anyway? He must sittin' on the big white seat right now, studying bacterial farting.
ghosty,
ReplyDeleteThat's the spirit...we humans always think that we are sooo special and we owe it all to Bacteria!
without a clue,
Not really but it is as close as I will ever get to your impoverished standards.
btw you have officially become more valuable on blogshares so I suppose that now I don't have to mollycoddle you anymore and I can express my true feelings because you are a bigshot!
brian the vegemite,
God never said that the world was only 6000 years old. The knuckleheads who support this theory can't wait to tell you what they THINK God said about everything else too.
mj,
The END is Nigh!
Vicus,
You are most welcome kind Sir.
tidalgrrrl,
NOOOO! Take the high road and throw salt upon our wounds but do not add to this shameful display of poor taste..especially at WWs!
Just let me enjoy a brief shame spiral and get it over with.
laurie,
Yes with all of the la di da topics in the universe to choose from we all seem to gravitate towards the path most taken don't we?
winifrid weinerwater,
I'm right here you big wanker!
So, the more farts we do the longer we live, the longer we survive as a race????
ReplyDeleteWhy did we ever leave the water is what I want to know.
ReplyDeleteperhaps because of those pesky sharks?
"Fish are friends, not food"
Ahhhh Chloroplasts were would we be without them...
ReplyDeleteSingle cells eating one annother, then relising how much better it would be if we got inside one annother for the greater good.
metaphor for life and flatulence.
I know..I agree with Ghosty...Im insignificant to the whole world too...but Im quite significant to my mum :)
ReplyDeleteKeshi.
The only thing to keep us alive: GAS!
ReplyDeleteOver here, gassing means having a natter, waffling, etc...
Life is definitely a gas!
whitesnake,
ReplyDeleteWho knew? This is just another unpleasant part of reality that 'most' cultures choose to ignore.
fathorse,
'We' left the water to exploit the virgin land. Once plants got a foothold the nibblers followed and the gnoshers who ate the nibblers were right behind them.
Even with all of the obstacles and adaptations needed to survive in the harsh light of day Nature kept trying. Five extinction level events later and now thanks to us Nature is just getting ready for number 6.
aidan,
HA HA! Excellent points. The greater good indeed.
keshiroo,
You are NOT insignificant anywhere that you choose to go..you're a STAR baby! A SUPERSTAR!
Cream,
MMMmm Waffles MMMmmm.
Where have I landed now? Just what the doctor ordered. Gas!
ReplyDeleteMay time to turn all that into beautiful poetry?
Make all that odour visually appealing. Wot say, brother? from your royal throne?
Oh HE, you have such a way with words. That last line was poetic. LOL.
ReplyDeleteShould we assume that any planet that doesn't have water therefore could never harbour life?
Bacteria ? not algae ? now I am confused.
ReplyDeletegautami,
ReplyDeletePoetry or try Poe? I know that you are waiting for me to get artsy but there are still a couple weeks of summer left...and I forgot what my excuse was going to be. Dammit!
anhydrousblogger,
Any planet without water probably wouldn't have our type of Life but it may have dreamed up another way.
hildegarde,
Oh-oh somebody is doing their homework. Good for you. I know that they once lumped them all together with blue-green algae but apparently those first cyanophytes are more primitive than algae.
Regardless of WHAT released all of that wonderful O2, it was the essential element for Life to move on to the Land.
Ha, ha, haaaa! Brilliant amigo mio!
ReplyDeleteDammitall! What with my chronic constipation and all, I can't help but feel screwed over 'cause dude, where's MY bacterial farting?
DAMN you evolution! DAMN YOU!
;-P
*whispers* (Thought I'd add to the EWWW factor! Ha, ha, haaaa!)
the sense of relief is a nearly palpable thing - at last, i'm ahead of the curve - far ahead,
ReplyDeleteby various accounts. even so, i wonder how paramecea deal with Heineken-disulfide eructations? the immense back-pressures involved? the ubiquity?
keeping up on the meds there, HE? ;-)
most people will not admit to liking their own farts.. ermm..
ReplyDeleteWhere were you when I was struggling in biology?
ReplyDeleteDang.
"I fart in your general direction."
ReplyDeleteit's really endearing to see so many here, each contributing to make the environment what it is ;)
ReplyDeleteit all started going downhill, once
beano addiction became common...
....until the atmosphere became SO supersaturated with oxygen that, by the time of the giant cycads (cretaceous?) the earth was experiencing random atmospheric flashover...huge tornadoes of fire as big as a continent! every time there was a lightning storm! that was was mostly responsible for laying down the organic guck that eventually became OIL.
ReplyDeleteme, i deal mainly in bacterial poo i.e. humus. yay for dirt!
...was was?
ReplyDeleteyeesh.
you were beautiful over at kindness' place, chookie.
miz bohemia,
ReplyDeleteMy dear Bohemia if only I could wave a magic wand and free your..your...you know,
I would do it in a heartbeat!
grumblefish,
I am delighted that you have admitted to this inconvenient truth and that you are doing your part in disrupting the Ozone layer one
Heineken-disulfide eructation at a time.
mistipurple,
How nice of you to drop by. I did not know that most people like their own toots..even the surprise ones that happen at the worst possible time?
mutha,
I was skippin' class and hangin' OUT with the IN crowd. It was the 70s so we were off inhaling mind expanding gaslike substances.
Hey kids ignore that..
score goals not drugs!
jocelyn
Silly wiper of other people's bottoms! Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time you silly kniggit!
beanofish,
In my best Charlton Heston voice,
"Damn you Beano! Damn you all to hell!"
first nations,
What about changing your Grandson's cute wittle tushie?
Oh I thought you said bacterial poo i.e. humans, but you said humus!
Kindness's story stole my heart and made my spirit soar.
that is friggin hysterical dude!!!
ReplyDeleteangel,
ReplyDeleteThanks Angel, NOVA had their Origins special on last night and I learned a little more about cyanobacterium.
If the history of the Earth was reduced to one 24 hour day, these little guys started oxygenating at 5am and the atomosphere was ready for life to move on to the land by 9pm!