I’m no professor, but fundamentally I think so, and I’ve read about how Earth actually could be looked at as a sort of battery, another one of those goldilocks things, without that prerequisite condition, the whole energy gradient dance of electron transfer that drove the development of the Kreb cycle, would have been dead in the water.
If you’re seriously curious, have I got the book for you to read:
The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life David Quammen Simon & Schuster (2018)
In The Tangled Tree, celebrated science writer David Quammen tells perhaps the grandest tale in biology: how scientists used gene sequencing to elucidate the evolutionary relationships between living beings. Charles Darwin called it the ‘great Tree of Life’. But as Quammen reveals, at the molecular level, life’s history is more accurately depicted as a network, a tangled web through which organisms have been exchanging genes for more than 3 billion years. This perspective is indeed radical, and he presents the science — and the scientists involved — with patience, candour and flair.
That and some of Nick Lane’s books, talks.
so what?
Nick also points out the urea cycle, but none of those, take up the center stage of essential metabolism the way the Kreb cycle does.
How could it be?
For one, the Krebs cycle is down there in the quantum realm, mitosis is organized biology.
The Kreb cycle is basically all about electron transfer, driving reactions between hydrogen and oxygen, and spitting out ATP in the process (about a billion are within a single cell.)
The foundation of life’s metabolism. For details watch that video up there.
Not even,
watch Nick Lanes talk up there.
Migrated, that’s an interesting way of looking at it.
But keep in mind single cell life in the ocean can’t help but be swept around by currents.
What about the continents themselves?
Everything was migrating relative to everything else, conditions changed, which drove evolutionary changes and survivors made babies and those that didn’t, well, they didn’t leave babies behind. While the beat goes on.
Oh yeah, I’ll bet there’s a fascinating life story to be uncovered.
Their research also gave more insight into the genes responsible for the near-invincibility of tardigrades. By monitoring which genes were activated during desiccation, Yoshida and colleagues found out which proteins are made to fill space normally occupied by water, and how that process happens. Additionally, they identified proteins that may help shield DNA from radiation.
Now try figuring out why they might need radiation shielding.
