Complex multicellular organisms may have evolved earlier than we thoughtRecently, researchers in Chi

Complex multicellular organisms may have evolved earlier than we thoughtRecently, researchers in China discovered fossils of multicellular life forms that are over 600 million years old. The researchers found that their fossils possessed features characteristic of complex multicellular life similar to modern multicellular organisms, like cell specialization, cell differentiation, adhesion between cells, and programmable cell death.This discovery may sound fairly innocuous, but what makes it stand out is that these fossils are 60 million years older than the oldest known fossils of complex multicellular organisms. The sudden boom of complex multicellular organisms in the geologic record — animals with supporting skeletons, shells, and multiple appendages — is famously known as the Cambrian explosion, which occurred 540 million years ago. Before the emergence of complex, multi-limbed organisms, communities of unicellular and simple multicellular bacteria and algae had ruled the Earth for over 2 billion years.But the Cambrian explosion was not the first time complex multicellular organisms appeared on Earth. During the Ediacaran period, 600 million years ago, a strange group of complex multicellular organisms known as the Ediacaran biota evolved but became extinct before the Cambrian explosion. These fossils are of the soft-bodied variety, similar to modern animals such as earthworms and jellyfish, but the majority of the Ediacaran biota don’t seem to share an evolutionary connection with today’s complex multicellular organisms.So far, however, researchers aren’t exactly sure what these newly discovered fossils represent. Are they a bridge that connected between the peculiar Ediacaran biota and more familiar Cambrian organisms? Could they be transitional organisms between simple multicellular life forms and more complex multicellular organisms? Or are they precursors to the complex Cambrian organisms, meaning that the Cambrian explosion occurred much earlier than previously thought? Only more studies on these exciting fossils will tell.-DCPhoto credit:http://bit.ly/1FVxq8TMore reading: http://bit.ly/1HEgu3thttp://bit.ly/1SNmOOXhttp://bit.ly/1Kwa61ehttp://bit.ly/1JhcV7Mhttp://bit.ly/1ENXBhShttp://bit.ly/1otVwdAThe Cambrian explosion: http://to.pbs.org/1dELr0ehttp://bit.ly/1HXOVHKhttp://bit.ly/1I2p5zzUnicellular vs. multicellular organisms: http://bit.ly/1Jh1JrH -- source link
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