• A Nervous System From Half A Billion Years Ago
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[QUOTE][IMG]http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/files/2013/10/Cambrian_nervous-990x479.jpg[/IMG] [I]Nervous systems of Alalcomenaeus (top) and a larval horseshoe crab (bottom). Credit: Nick Strausfeld.[/I][/QUOTE] [QUOTE]If I tell you that scientists have studied the nervous system of a creature that’s half a billion years old, it’s hard to appreciate what that means. Half a billion years is, to paraphrase Douglas Adams, a vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big span of time, when even last week seems like an age ago. So here’s (a concise history of) what happened since a little creature called Alalcomenaeus died: Its body sinks to the ocean floor, gets covered in sediment and slowly turns into a stony fossil. Meanwhile, all the world’s land has time to glom together into a mega-continent called Pangaea before breaking up again. Life, was restricted to the oceans, invades the land. Plants and fungi go first, producing thin coverings of mosses and lichens and eventually giant forests. The insects appear, and take to the skies. Other marine animals evolve familiar traits like bones and jaws, and their descendants diversify across the land. Dinosaurs come, see and conquer, before (mostly) dying out. Mammals get their day and one of them, armed with technology and knowledge, unearths Alalcomenaeus from its ancient resting place in what is now China. As I said: a vastly, hugely, mind-boggling big span of time. Lots happened. And through all of it, the nervous system of this buried animal remained intact. A team of scientists have now reconstructed it. There it is in the images above and below —a network of nerves that drove an animal’s behaviour in a time before life on land. [B]...[/B][/QUOTE] [QUOTE][IMG]http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/files/2013/10/Alalcomenaeus-nervous.jpg[/IMG] [I]Different images of Alalcomenaeus. (a) is the fossil. (b) is an outline of iron desposits. (c) is a CT scan. (d) is the previous two overlaid on each other. (e) is the nervous system.[/I][/QUOTE] [B]There's more about it here:[/B][url]http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/16/a-nervous-system-from-half-a-billion-years-ago/[/url]
Evolution is a crazy and awesome machine
500 million / 500,000,000 years Fuck me That's ~about a ninth of the Earth's total age back in time
[QUOTE=DChapsfield;42579991]500 million / 500,000,000 years Fuck me That's ~about a ninth of the Earth's total age back in time[/QUOTE]And to think that modern humans have only been around for 200,000 years. that's like, nothing
You would hope that there would be more of those laying nearby.
And now the pinnacle of that is us, with apes and porpoises close to the summit.
[QUOTE=ironman17;42584124]And now the pinnacle of that is us, with apes and porpoises close to the summit.[/QUOTE] There is no "pinnacle" in an ever shifting evolutionary environment. Implying there's a pinnacle means that something is evolutionarily stagnant.
[QUOTE=RetaDepa;42584381]There is no "pinnacle" in an ever shifting evolutionary environment. Implying there's a pinnacle means that something is evolutionarily stagnant.[/QUOTE] really well said.
cuttlefish are pretty sick though
[QUOTE=Killer900;42580068]And to think that modern humans have only been around for 200,000 years. that's like, nothing[/QUOTE] And on top of that modern civilisation has only been in existence for between 10,000 and 20,000 years. We've came a long way baby.
What's the system so nervous about? C'mon, just relax! Be yourself!
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