Correction: the molecular biology bit, about the foundations of life on earth, dates back to around 3.5 bya.
Life does, and possibly also phosphate extraction from subsea rock by fungi, but my main parallel to mfg. of phosphate fertilizer was colonization of land (pioneering/increasing biological scale) via phosphate extraction from rock by lichens est. to have started c. 800mya.
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+ just remembered I mentioned the nitrogen crisis, that also likely dates much closer to the origins of life. Already blogged about that and Haber-Bosch is a thread for another day. :-)
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1/5 It sounds like you’d love the research field known as ‘major evolutionary transitions’, which is the formal study of how biological complexity itself is brought about.
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2/5 Genes into genomes, genomes into cells, cells into other cells, cells into multi-celled organisms, multi-celled organisms into special groups known as super organisms.
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3/5 All life is hierarchical. Each new level in the hierarchy is difficult to evolve, because it requires cooperation among the lower level entities, and natural selection usually favours selfishness.
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4/5 But once it does evolve, more complex life always seems to spread rapidly, occupying and creating new niches in which itself and other life forms can exist and compete.
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5/5 It’s an amazing field of research. Information theory plus evolutionary game theory and a whole load more. There are many potential applications of evolutionary theory to crypto too that I may well think more about one day!
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I have yes. It’s a pretty decent book. There’s very little maths or chemistry in there. It’s very readable. If you want a taste for the ideas I can DM you the short Nature paper if you like?
End of conversation
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