{"id":6921,"date":"2015-10-27T07:53:05","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T14:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=6921"},"modified":"2015-11-10T07:56:08","modified_gmt":"2015-11-10T14:56:08","slug":"the-real-big-bang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2015\/10\/27\/the-real-big-bang\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Big Bang"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/nautil.us\/issue\/17\/big-bangs\/the-greatest-animal-war\" target=\"_blank\">from Nautilus<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<h1 class=\"article-title\">The Greatest Animal War<\/h1>\n<p>BY BROOKE BOREL \/ ILLUSTRATIONS BY KATIE SCOTT<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.nautil.us\/4557_3596c80a46918e6dde2f3c37290cba47.png\" alt=\"Cambrian(733)_BREAKER-(2).png\" width=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A simple species count does not do justice to the power of the Cambrian Explosion. Species have continuously formed over time. A new type of moth may have antennae that are furrier than its sisters; a new species of dinosaur may be distinguished by clawed wings and vicious front fangs. But a new phylum\u2014a major branch on the tree of life, the upper-level ranking that separates an insect from a pterodactyl\u2014is rarely born.<\/p>\n<p>Most of today\u2019s 30 to 40 animal phyla originated in the Cambrian, and have persisted through time with hundreds of variations on a theme (see\u00a0<b>Explosion<\/b>). Where the Cambrian Explosion saw a proliferation of architectures (picture igloos, cabins, skyscrapers, suburban houses, and grass huts), the rest of time has mainly been about remodeling existing forms (add a Jacuzzi, a deck, or a tin roof). The explosion of animal phyla in the Cambrian includes the category, the chordates, to which humans, reptiles, sloths, and fish belong. Chordates are united by a central bundle of nerve fibers running down our backs, supported by a stiff rod.<\/p>\n<p>Why did it take so long for the explosion to happen? After all, life arose 3.5 billion years ago, and the first eukaryotic cells (the kind within our bodies) occurred a billion and a half years later. Beneath the surface, a lot was probably going on: DNA had to work just right for organisms with multiple cells to evolve, and then enable a diversity of forms for natural selection to play with. In the Cambrian, \u201c[animals] got large, and biomineralized, and they started doing stuff they never did before,\u201d says Nick Butterfield, a paleontologist at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. \u201cSuddenly,\u201d he says, \u201cit just started to click.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[ <a href=\"http:\/\/nautil.us\/issue\/17\/big-bangs\/the-greatest-animal-war\" target=\"_blank\">click to continue reading at Nautilus<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from Nautilus The Greatest Animal War BY BROOKE BOREL \/ ILLUSTRATIONS BY KATIE SCOTT A simple species count does not do justice to the power of the Cambrian Explosion. Species have continuously formed over time. A new type of moth may have antennae that are furrier than its sisters; a new species of dinosaur may [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}