The Physics of Cold Water May Have Jump-Started Complex Life

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine.

Once upon a time, long ago, the world was encased in ice. That’s the tale told by sedimentary rock in the tropics, many geologists believe. Hundreds of millions of years ago, glaciers and sea ice covered the globe. The most extreme scenarios suggest a layer of ice several meters thick even at the equator.

This event has been called Snowball Earth, and you’d think it would be a terrible time to be alive—and maybe, for some organisms, it was. However, in a warmer period between glaciations, the first evidence of multicellular animals appears, according to some interpretations of the geological record.

→ Continue reading at Wired - Science

More from author

Related posts

Advertisment

Latest posts

This industry is defying America’s slowing job market | CNN Business

Washington CNN  —  America’s lucrative job market of recent years is now long gone, with the unemployment rate recently...

Learn to Use AI to Create Stunning Art and Content

Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you'll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may...

Susan Wojcicki, former YouTube CEO and Silicon Valley visionary, dies at 56

Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki speaks at the World Economic Forum annual meeting...