Life

Earth Log 0008 The Long March Onto Land

Ordinal

The previous entry described the first two billion years of life on Earth — a long, almost entirely microscopic stretch in which the chemistry of cells was worked out, the atmosphere was remade, and the cooperative architecture of multicellular bodies was assembled in the oceans. By its end, eukaryotic cells were established and several lineages had begun to live in cooperative bodies of many cells working as one.

Earth Log 0004 The Origin of Life

Ordinal

Where possible, I cite sources from which I made inferences so that future readers — should they recover the technical literature of this era — can trace specific claims back to their origins and assess them for themselves. References are listed, in numbered form, at the end of each entry.

How did living things arise on a planet that was, at first, not living?