{"id":798,"date":"2008-11-21T13:40:31","date_gmt":"2008-11-21T17:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=798"},"modified":"2008-12-29T21:45:46","modified_gmt":"2008-12-30T02:45:46","slug":"single-celled-giant-upends-early-evolution-or-does-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=798","title":{"rendered":"Single-Celled Giant Upends Early Evolution-Or Does it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2008)<\/a><\/span>\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Groove-like tracks on the ocean floor made by giant deep-sea single-celled organisms could lead to new insights into the evolutionary origin of animals, says biologist Mikhail “Misha” Matz from The University of Texas at Austin. “If our giant protists were alive 600 million years ago and the track was fossilized, a paleontologist unearthing it today would without a shade of doubt attribute it to a kind of large, multicellular, bilaterally symmetrical animal,” says Matz, an assistant professor of integrative biology. “We now have to rethink the fossil record.”<\/span><\/p>\n

However,\u00c2\u00a0Professor Joe Meert<\/a> Florida Citizens for Science Vice President is not so convinced. Here is his response.<\/span><\/p>\n

I would not be surprised if some of the Precambrian tracks were indeed made by similar single-celled organisms, but I hesitate to ascribe ‘all precambrian tracks’ to such creatures.\u00c2\u00a0 Some are weird sedimentary artifacts and others are difficult to attribute to protists like these.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t have access to this journal at UF so I can’t look at the traces.\u00c2\u00a0 The more convincing Precambrian traces I’ve seen tend to be quite deeply furrowed and unlikely to result from simpler protists. So my bias is that multicellularity has deep roots in the Precambrian albeit with a low diversity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Valid disagreement within the realms of scientific research is the driving force of progress and stimulates the continuing search for knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2008)\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Groove-like tracks on the ocean floor made by giant deep-sea single-celled organisms could lead to new insights into the evolutionary origin of animals, says biologist Mikhail “Misha” Matz from The University of Texas at Austin. “If … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-cS","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":636,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=636","url_meta":{"origin":798,"position":0},"title":"New Evidence For Evolutionary Link Between Single-celled And Multi-celled Organisms","author":"Jonathan Smith","date":"July 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0What do humans and single-celled choanoflagellates have in common? More than you'd think. New research into the choanoflagellate genome shows these ancient organisms have similar levels of proteins that cells in more complex organisms, including humans, use to communicate with each other. These findings help confirm choanoflagellates' role as an\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1196,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1196","url_meta":{"origin":798,"position":1},"title":"Keep an eye on Hillsborough","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Sure, we may have missed out on a great show in Pinellas County when a potential candidate who had serious problems with basic science understanding didn't qualify in time to officially run. But another opportunity has presented itself in Hillsborough County. Terry Kemple is running for a seat on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1196#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":334,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=334","url_meta":{"origin":798,"position":2},"title":"News Release: Standards can go from F to high B","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The following news release was sent out today as a joint effort of Florida Citizens for Science and the National Center for Science Education. Prof. who flunked Florida science standards says new ones are shooting for an A Expert gave current statewide standards an F but new draft is \"a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":856,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=856","url_meta":{"origin":798,"position":3},"title":"Science quickies","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Just some miscellaneous science news: > Mississippi is number two out of the gate in 2009 for antievolution nonsense. (Oklahoma was number one.) An act to require the state board of education to include certain language explaining that evolution is a theory in the inside front cover of certain pubilc\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=856#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=36","url_meta":{"origin":798,"position":4},"title":"Studying earthquakes … in Florida","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"September 12, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Nope, hurricanes are just not enough for Floridians to handle. Now we have to worry about the ground shaking too. Sheesh! Last year's strong hurricane season may have contributed to a magnitude 6.0 earthquake in the Gulf of Mexico Sunday, a University of Florida professor says. ... Hurricane Katrina moved\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Science in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Science in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=5"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":290,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=290","url_meta":{"origin":798,"position":5},"title":"Dinosaur Month","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently, it's Dinosaur Month! This newspaper has a good list of places in Florida participating in some way. My favorites: The Florida Museum of Natural History: Just in time for Dinosaur Month, the museum has opened \"The Hall of Florida Fossils: Evolution of Life and Land.\" The exhibit will feature\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}