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Transcript: Part 1
How many different species of living organisms do you think exist on our tiny planet? The truth is we dont really know. Estimates range from perhaps 530 MILLION 5 million to perhaps as many as 30 million, and SPECIES ON it could be a lot more than that. Thats staggering EARTH TODAY variety, and thats only a tiny fraction of all the species that have existed in the history of life which extends over almost 4 billion years. Yeah, life really is mysterious, but there is actually quite a lot we know about it. Weve seen that. We know some of the main characteristics of life, and we also have a pretty good idea of how and why life changes over time. What were going to do in this unit is were going to survey the history of life over almost 4 billion years. Well begin with the origins of life. That, remember, is our fifth major threshold in this course. And then what were going to do is were going to look at a THRESHOLD 5: LIFE series of smaller turning points. We call them minithresholds. These are times when something new appears that seems to be slightly more complex than the things that existed before. And all of this, of course, is pointing to the creation of our own species, homo sapiens. We begin with the origins of life. Now remember, this is the fifth major threshold of increasing complexity in our course, and let me remind you what we mean by thresholds of increasing complexity. At each of these thresholds, something new seems to appear in the Universe, something with entirely new qualities. Now, each time weve crossed these thresholds weve asked similar questions.

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HOW DID LIFE BEGIN & CHANGE?

How did life begin and change?

In this two-part lecture, David Christian describes the Goldilocks Conditions on Earth that made it possible for life to form and prosper. Part 1 recounts the earliest life forms in the deep sea and Part 2 highlights some mini-thresholds that mark key changes in the evolution of life. Part 2 ends with the appearance of the first mammals. After reading the text below and watching the video, you should be able to explain why Earth is particularly suited for complex life and outline the story of how life changed in the past 3.8 billion years, from simple prokaryotes to highly complex mammals.

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Key questions
1  What Goldilocks Conditions on Earth support the development of life? 2  How did Earths composition and structure contribute to early life? 3 How did life expand from the ocean on to land?
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So when we talked about the first threshold the creation of the Universe or the creation of the EARTH PROVIDED stars or the creation of new chemical elements, THE GOLDILOCKS or the creation of planets, we asked, what were CONDITIONS FOR LIFE the Goldilocks Conditions that made it possible to cross that threshold? So lets ask the same question about life. Now, with life there is a problem because biologists suspect that theres life all through the Universe, but the truth is we dont know. The only place in which were sure life appeared is on our planet. So thats the only place we can really study it. So lets rephrase the question. What were the Goldilocks Conditions for the origins of life on Earth? Now, we can start with the fact that living organisms consist of very, very complex chemicals. Theyre not just large; theyre also organized in very precise structures, whereas non-living things consist of very simple molecules. So to get life, you need environments in which you can do really exotic, really interesting, really elaborate chemistry. So where do you find conditions such that atoms can combine in all sorts of exotic forms?

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Lets recall that in space you can do simple chemistry atoms can combine to form molecules with perhaps 10, 20, 30, never more than 100 atoms. But rocky planets like our Earth, it turns out, are wonderful environments for good chemistry. There are three reasons for this. The first is that they contain a great diversity of different elements, and above all they contain those elements that you need for organic life. The crucial ones are carbon, theres lots of hydrogen of course, theres also oxygen, nitrogen. These are all elements that were formed in dying stars, and also a bit of phosphorous and sulfur.

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THREE GOLDILOCKS CONDITIONS ROCKY PLANETS ARE RICH WITH DIFFERENT ELEMENTS

The second Goldilocks Condition is energy. This is subtle. You mustnt have too much. If theres too much you blast complex molecules apart, but you THE RIGHT LEVEL mustnt have too little. If there is too little there is OF ENERGY not the energy for atoms to combine. The Earth was perfect. It was near a star so it had energy, but not too much. It also had energy coming up from its hot, molten core. Now, the third Goldilocks Condition is slightly subtler. Its the presence of liquids and above all, of water. Why? Well, think about it. In gases, atoms are moving around incredibly fast and its very hard for them to link up, but in solids, atoms are stuck. They are stuck in a grid, like bad traffic, like a traffic jam. But in liquids, they can cruise past each other so its much easier for them to hitch up in all sorts of complex forms. So here are three Goldilocks Conditions. The early Earth was almost perfect for elaborate chemistry.

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WATER PROVIDES A GOOD ENVIRONMENT FOR ATOMS TO LINK UP

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Transcript: Part 2 4:47-5:40

DEEP SEA VENTS ARE A RICH CHEMICAL ENVIRONMENT FOR MOLECULAR DEVELOPMENT Weve seen that all these Goldilocks Conditions existed on the early Earth. Probably the ideal place for elaborate chemistry was deep beneath the oceans at cracks in the Earths crust mid-oceanic vents. These were ideal because youve got lots of chemicals seeping up from the mantle and youve also got lots of energy. We know now that under these conditions its fairly simple to create the simplest organic molecules that appear in all living organisms. Im talking about molecules with just 10, 20, 30 atoms in them such as amino acids, which are the basis of all proteins, or nucleotides, which are the basis of DNA. We also know that its not too hard under these conditions to string those simple molecules together in huge chains to form proteins and nucleotide molecules. Lets explore how life has changed and diversified since the emergence of organic molecules in basic cells. One way to view this process is through six LIFE MOVED mini-thresholds. A threshold is a sudden increase ACROSS SIX in complexity that gives rise to new, emergent MINI-THRESHOLDS properties, new qualities. Consider each minithreshold for yourself. Does it mark something new and different, and if so, why? Our first mini-threshold is photosynthesis. Its likely that the first prokaryotes evolved deep in the ocean in massive vents that provided them with chemical and heat energy. About 3.5 billion years ago some cells migrated to the oceans surface and evolved to use vastly more abundant energy from the sun. The process they developed to do this is called photosynthesis. It led to an energy bonanza and that enabled life to spread to many more places, and since oxygen is created as a by-product of photosynthesis, huge numbers of photosynthesizing prokaryotes over millions of years radically transformed our atmosphere from one rich in carbon dioxide to one richer in oxygen. Oxygen was poisonous for many species so they died off, but new species emerged that could use oxygen as an amazing chemical energy.

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FIRST MINI-THRESHOLD: PHOTOSYNTHESIS IS THE PROCESS BY WHICH CELLS USE THE SUN AS ENERGY ATMOSPHERIC OXYGEN INCREASED, KILLING SOME SPECIES, ENABLING OTHERS

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RESEARCHERS CONTINUE TO EXPLORE EARLY LIFE DEVELOPMENT

What gets tricky is the next stage. How, with lots of these large molecules to bring them together to form cells with membranes theyre like skins and also with DNA at their center. But most biologists are pretty confident that though there is still some mystery here, theyll work it out in the next 2010, 20 years.

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Mini-threshold two is the emergence of eukaryotes about 2.5 billion years ago. These are more complex SECOND cells whose DNA is locked up inside a special case MINI-THRESHOLD: called the nucleus, which helps protect and preserve EUKARYOTES vital genetic information. Eukaryotes also contain tiny organs called organelles. Like the organs in your body, they perform special functions such as photosynthesis, or processing oxygen. This meant that eukaryotes could thrive in Earths increasingly oxygen-rich atmosphere while many prokaryotes perished. Thats a pretty important development since we are made entirely of eukaryotic cells. Around 1 billion years ago, we crossed minithreshold number three, the introduction of the first multi-cellular organisms. In the same way specialized organelles came together to form more complex eukaryotes, different eukaryotes came together to form even more complex life forms. These organisms could contain billions of cells, each with a different function, but all sharing the same DNA so they worked together. With networks of specialized cells and cooperation, multicelled organisms could respond to changes in the environment in entirely new ways, further developing a key survival trait of life that we call homeostasis.

The development of brains is mini-threshold four. FOURTH Multicelled organisms needed a way to coordi- MINI-THRESHOLD: nate all the activities going on inside them and this BRAINS became the work of special nerve cells. In some organisms these cells began to cluster at the head and down the spinal cord to form the first brains. Organisms with brains could process much more information, and they could react to it in even more complex ways, which enabled richer and more sophisticated activities, like thinking, and perhaps even consciousness. Mini-threshold number five is when life moves from the ocean to land. From about 475 million years ago, some multicellular organisms, beginning with plants and fungi, left the oceans for land. There was a great incentive, this new environment was rich in new opportunities for organisms that could find ways to survive. That was a challenge, though, as these organisms had to develop special skins to avoid drying out, special ways to breathe out of water, and new ways to reproduce. The modern equivalent would be humans trying to live in space.

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THIRD MINI-THRESHOLD: MULTICELLULAR ORGANISMS

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FIFTH MINI-THRESHOLD: LIFE MOVES ON TO LAND

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Mammals, the forerunners of you and me, account for mini-threshold number six. The first animal SIXTH to live on land may have been like a modern lungMINI-THRESHOLD: fish, but other land animals soon evolved, such as MAMMALS amphibians. These still needed to return to the water to reproduce. Then came reptiles like crocodiles or dinosaurs. These developed large, leathery eggs that could survive well away from water. Then about 250 million years ago, the first mammals appeared on Earth evolving from a branch of reptiles that loosely resembled birds. Mammals are warm-blooded, theyre furry, and they dont lay eggs, and you and I are mammals. Does the appearance of mammals really count as a mini-threshold, or is it just because we are mammals that we think so? What would be other candidates for mini-thresholds, by the way? The development of backbones? The ability to think? Or what about the concept of family?

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