The amazing Life on Earth: fertilized in a bolt of lightning

"The uniformity of the earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled." 

Lewis Thomas

Stephanie on a Hollywood bed by Art T

Escherichia Coli

Scanning electron micrograph of Escherichia coli, grown in culture and adhered to a cover slip. Credit: Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID

E Coli is a prokaryotic bacterium similiar to the ones that 3.600.000.000 (3.6 billion) years ago, with the intervention of lightning storms, became the first living organisms and ancestors of the Stephanie on the top photo.

"Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning."

Samuel Butler

"(...)But how was the first cell created? Charles Darwin proposed that the first proteins evolved from non-living matter. But how did this happen? Firstly, the earth was not the same today as it was 3 to 4 billion years ago when the first organic compounds where being formed. The early atmosphere was too hot for oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), and other elements to exist alone, as they do today. These elements combined to form methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), water vapor (H2O), hydrogen sulfide (formula), hydrogen molecules (H2), etc. These where all, and thus the early atmosphere was called a 'reducing atmosphere'. Further, as there was no free oxygen to form an ozone (O3) layer to protect the earth from the harsh ultra-violet radiation (UV Rays) from the sun. Also, there where incredibly violent electrical storms, which where more violent than any which occur today.(...)" 

"(...)But how did these proteins and other organic compounds form the first cell? It is not very clear, but most likely, a group of organic molecules including proteins, and primitive fatty acids formed into a droplet, or bubble-like structure, which had the ability to combine with external elements, such as proteins not a part of it. Eventually, these droplets would grow, and divide. These droplets would eventually evolve into the first true cell. These early cells would have been autotrophs, which are organism which produce their own energy, usually from sunlight. Some of these cells would then evolve into heterotrophs (organisms which ingest organic material as a nutrient source)"

More here: The first cell

Qual o ser vivo (do reino animal) de maior "sucesso"? E é isto o "sucesso" que queremos?

"As formigas são o gênero animal de maior sucesso na história terrestre, constituindo de 15% a 20% de toda a biomassa animal terrestre. Acredita-se que o surgimento das formigas na Terra se deu durante o período Cretáceo (há mais de 100 milhões de anos)"

"It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?"

Henry David Thoreau  

"Not to engage in the pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of like men."

Mortimer Adler

"Ants are the leading removers of dead creatures on the land. And the rest of life is substantially dependent upon them."

E. O. Wilson

"People, chained by monotony, afraid to think, clinging to certainties... they live like ants."

Bela Lugosi

"It is only when you watch the dense mass of thousands of ants, crowded together around the Hill, blackening the ground, that you begin to see the whole beast, and now you observe it thinking, planning, calculating. It is an intelligence, a kind of live computer, with crawling bits for its wits."

Lewis Thomas

"Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labour, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television."

Lewis Thomas

"I won't compare ants and people, but ants give us a useful model of how single members of a community can become so organized that they end up resembling, in effect, one big collective brain. Our own exploding population and communication technology are leading us that way."

Lewis Thomas

"We're all like little ants who scurry around with the materials that are at hand right now. Each generation finds new materials. Its just evolution, isn't it?"

Beth Orton

"We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure."

Gerald Brenan