Energy important for complex life?
OK, a while back we mentioned how one biologist thinks that the evolution of vision was the cause of the Cambrian Explosion. Well, it turns out that oxygen [aerobic respiration] was also important for the development of complex eukaryotes (select the PDF if you want to see the full article). Perhaps I’m being a carbon-based aerobic metabolizing bigot, but did anyone really imagine that anaerobic metabolism could yield enough energy for complex life? Well, at least it would have been an interesting premise for a science fiction short story-a world of short sprints perhaps?
Posted by razib at 02:44 PM
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