scholarly journals Evolution of Life Forms in Our Universe

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 1975-2002
Author(s):  
Robert M. L. Baker Jr. ◽  
Bonnie Sue Baker ◽  
Jeannie Hall Moller Fontana
Keyword(s):  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
Arunachalam Vasanthanathan ◽  
Uthirakumar Siddharth ◽  
Manivannan Vignesh ◽  
Radhakrishnan Pravin

Background: Nature has always played a vital role in the evolution of life forms. The design of products in accordance with nature’s design, popularly known as biomimicry, had played a vital role in pushing the technology and product effectiveness to the next level. Humans have long sought to mimic not just the design, but also the methodology adopted by certain animals. For example, the walking technique of vertebrates has been effectively mimicked for a quadruped robot to make a system more efficient by consuming less power. Thus indirectly, nature acts as a driving factor in pushing technological growth. Methods: The principle objective of this paper is to provide an overview of popular bio mimicked products inspired by nature. This paper emphasizes a wide variety of products developed in the field of materials inspired by nature. Results: Wall-climbing robots, Sonar, X-ray imaging, Sandwich and Honeycomb structures are some of the popular products and designs inspired by nature. They have resulted in better designs, better products with improved efficiency and thus have proven to be better alternatives. Some products and designs such as Samara drone, Riblet surfaces, DSSCs, Biomimetic Drills and Water turbines have plenty of scopes to replace conventional products and designs. Conclusion: While plenty of products, structures and designs have successfully replaced older alternatives, there is still a large scope for biomimicry where it could potentially replace conventional products and designs to offer better efficiency.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renee M. Clary

ABSTRACT Although he was legally blind, Charles R. Knight (1874–1953) established himself as the premier paleontological artist in the early 1900s. When the Field Museum, Chicago, commissioned a series of large paintings to document the evolution of life, Knight was the obvious choice. Knight considered himself an artist guided by science; he researched and illustrated living animals and modern landscapes to better understand and represent extinct life forms within their paleoecosystems. Knight began the process by examining fossil skeletons; he then constructed small models to recreate the animals’ life anatomy and investigate lighting. Once details were finalized, Knight supervised assistants to transfer the study painting to the final mural. The Field Museum mural process, a monumental task of translating science into public art, was accompanied by a synergistic tension between Knight, who wanted full control over his artwork, and the museum’s scientific staff; the correct position of an Eocene whale’s tail—whether uplifted or not—documents a critical example. Although modern scientific understanding has rendered some of Knight’s representations obsolete, the majority of his 28 murals remain on display in the Field Museum’s Evolving Planet exhibit. Museum educators contrast these murals with contemporary paleontological knowledge, thereby demonstrating scientific progress for better public understanding of the nature of science.


2001 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-134
Author(s):  
Gary Backhaus

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka expands the phenomenological study of meanings (sense-bestowal) into an onto-genetic inquiry by grounding it in a phenomenology of life, including the emotional dimension. This phenomenology of life is informed by the empirical sciences and its doctrines parallel the new scientific paradigm of open dynamic systems. Embedded in the dynamics of the real individuation of life forms, human consciousness emerges at a unique station in the evolutionary process. Tymieniecka treats the constitution of sense as a function of life, and thus the transcendental constitutive function of the cognitive, objectifying intentionality of consciousness, the purview of classical phenomenology, is viewed as a project that is limited in its scope. According to the phenomenology of life, meaning-genesis is exhibited throughout the various stages of structurization in the evolution of life. This paper highlights the transformative function of the “Imaginatio Creatrix,” which is the dynamic process at the human station of evolution that accounts for humanity’s inventive capacities necessary for the construction of a human world. The Imaginatio Creatrix transforms the more primitive stirrings of the human “soul” into subliminal passions of human existential significance. The enactive theory of the mind corroborates Tymieniecka’s rejection of Husserl’s doctrine of passive synthesis. However, Tymieniecka’s study of the creative function offers a key for further advancement in enactive theory. Three sense-bestowing functions of the Imaginatio Creatrix account for the human expansion of life: the Aesthetic/Poetic sense, the Objectifying Sense, and the Moral Sense. The Moral Sense, for Tymieniecka, is not the product of reasoning powers, but rather the fruit of subliminal passions that acquire their moral aspect through trans-actions guided by the “benevolent sentiment.”


2005 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry F. Recher ◽  
Paul R. Ehrlich

The beginning and end of each geological epoch is marked by a major, often cataclysmic, event affecting Earth?s biophysical environment. Most often major periods in Earth?s history requiring a new epoch to be named are remarkable by the mass extinction of dominant life forms and their eventual replacement by new groups of organisms which then dominate Earth?s ecosystems. Only once in pre-history were these spectacular evolutionary events precipitated by a physical or chemical change to Earth?s atmosphere as a result of biological activity. This occurred early in Earth?s history with the release of ?polluting? oxygen after the evolution of photosynthesis. More frequently, punctuations in the evolution of life have been brought on by some virtually instantaneous disruption to climate by extreme volcanic activity or an asteroid strike, such as that which heralded the end of dinosaurs and the dawn of the age of mammals. In these instances, changes to the capacity of Earth?s atmosphere to absorb and reflect light and heat from the Sun initiated a period of rapid global climate change leaving insufficient time for organisms to migrate or adapt.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 235-251
Author(s):  
Y. V. Subba Rao

              The current hypothesis leads to the panspermia origin of life, which is based on the scientific principle of electromagnetic force interaction with matter. Electromagnetic force (Sunlight) interacts with inorganic chemistry available to us given out by the stars in the universe plausibly triggers the formation of extra-terrestrial biological molecules of proto cells under abiotic conditions, as evidenced by their presence in meteorites.' Proto cells’ might theoretically give rise to living organisms with a manifested soul, allowing 'Ribose' to be formed from ice grains hit by sunlight for RNA and DNA at the same time. The presence of life's building blocks and other important organic chemicals like ribose in meteorites, including some microscopic life forms that aren't native to Earth, may have led to the 'Panspermia Origin of Life' and the 'Evolution of Life on Earth' which is evidenced by the definition of 'Meteorites' in Vedic Scriptures, such as the "Bhagavad Gita" (3000 BC) and "Brihat Samhita" (520 AD) that they are the souls of righteous people who have returned to earth to be reborn.


Author(s):  
Robin Dunbar

Can we say how life on earth started? The origins of life on earth must predate the earliest fossils, and presumably must be simpler in form than even those earliest fossils. It is very unlikely that we will ever know what these life forms were,...


Geology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (10) ◽  
pp. 1018-1022
Author(s):  
Indrani Mukherjee ◽  
Ross R. Large

Abstract The significance of trace elements in initiating origins and driving evolution of life on Earth is indisputable. Trace element (TE) trends in the oceans through time broadly reflect their availability and allow speculation on all possible influences on early life. A comprehensive sedimentary pyrite–TE database, covering 3000 m.y. of the Precambrian, has improved our understanding of the sequence of bio-essential TE availability in the ocean. This study probed how changing availability (and scarcity) of critical TEs in the marine environment influenced early life. The pyrite-shale matrix TE sequence shows relatively elevated concentrations of Ni, Co, Cu, and Fe, Cr, respectively, in the Archean and Paleoproterozoic. Abundances of these elements in the Archean potentially facilitated their widespread utilization by prokaryotes. The Paleoproterozoic–Mesoproterozoic saw increases in Zn and Mo but a marked decline in Ni, Co, Cu, Se, and Fe. Our data suggest the evolution of the first complex cell in the Paleoproterozoic was probably triggered by this major change in TE composition of the oceans. A decline of elements prompted alternative utilization strategies by organisms as a response to TE deficits in the middle Proterozoic. An overall increase in a multitude of elements (Ni, Co, Cu, Cr, Se, V, Mo, and P) in the Neoproterozoic and Cambrian was highly advantageous to the various micro– and macro–life forms. Without questioning the importance of macronutrients and atmosphere-ocean redox state, multi-TE availability would have induced substantial heterogenous biological responses, owing to the effects of optimal, deficient, toxic, lethal, and survival levels of TEs on life.


1996 ◽  
Vol 04 (02) ◽  
pp. 239-247
Author(s):  
G.P. GLADYSHEV ◽  
D.P. GLADYSHEV

The present paper deals with the experimental identification of previously postulated correlations linking the specific Gibbs function of the formation of supramolecular structures of living organisms with the chemical energy capacity or the relative thermodynamic stability of the substances involved in the self-assembly of these structures. The paper presents new results to further corroborate the macrothermodynamic model of the evolution of biological systems as applied to phylogenesis, ontogenesis as well as the extended periods of the general evolution of life forms.


2009 ◽  
Vol 81 (10) ◽  
pp. 1843-1855 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee D. Hansen ◽  
Richard S. Criddle ◽  
Edwin H. Battley

Calorimetric measurements on biological systems from small molecules to whole organisms lead to a new conception of the nature of live matter that has profound consequences for our understanding of biology. The data show that the differences in Gibbs energy (ΔG) and enthalpy (ΔH) are near zero or negative and the difference in entropy (ΔS) is near zero between a random mixture of molecules and live matter of the same composition. A constant input of energy is required to maintain ion gradients, ATP production, and the other functions of living matter, but because cells are organized in a spontaneous process, no energy input is required to maintain the structure or organization of cells. Thus, the origin of life and evolution of complex life forms occurs by thermodynamically spontaneous processes, carbon-based life should be common throughout the universe, and because there is no energy cost, evolution can occur relatively rapidly.


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