A (Very) Short History of Life On Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Chapters

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EXTINCTIONS AND COMPLEX LIFE: The book then talks about one terrible extinction of life in the Permian age where nine in every 10 sea animals and seven out of every ten land animals became extinct, many never to exist again or some species such a sea-urchin only existed because a few small numbers survived that particular extinction. An upsurge in tectonic activity buried vast quantities of carbon-rich organic detritus—the corpses of generation on generation of living things—beneath the ocean floor. From a geological perspective, humanity is but a blip on the map, and may not even make as meaningful an impact on the Earth as much smaller, and more simple forms of life.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is explaining how we should currently be living in an idyllic period of warmth due to the way that the Earth sits on its axis and revolves around the Sun. Unlike carbon dioxide, oxygen might be thought of as an all-round good thing, essential to life on Earth. Our carbon 'blip' is incomparably smaller than any of the repeated cycles of warming and cooling in the long past. From that first foray to the spread of early hominids who later became Homo sapiens, life has persisted, undaunted.The membranes made a virtue of their leakiness, using holes as gateways for energy and nutrients and as exit points for wastes. Well, I don't want to spoil it too much, but he goes into if the Earth continues on its trend that it has for all time, likely we humans won't see some of the truly big cataclysmic events (definitely not in my lifetime anyway). On one hand, predicting the future is not possible, but the overall familiarity of Dr Gee’s idea of the universality of aging makes it understandable and weirdly satisfying. to give you an idea of the time length of the dinosaurs walked on this planet, there is a greater distancing time between the rise and demise of a Stegosaurus and the rise and end of the Tyrannosaurus Rex as there is between Tyrannosaurus rex and humans first emerge. The pull of gravity squeezed the gas at the cloud’s center so much that atoms began to fuse together.

This is one of the delights of the chapter that peers in to the future - although all our focus at the moment is on keeping carbon dioxide levels down (and that is essential for now), long term it is likely to be reducing carbon dioxide rates that does for much of life on Earth. In the tradition of Richard Dawkins, Bill Bryson, and Simon Winchester—An entertaining and uniquely informed narration of Life's life story. A log cabin with a roof and walls is still a haven from the arctic blast outside, even if its door bangs and its windows rattle. As more fish developed and began to form groups, there were three groups of bony fish, one of which became extinct, but another went on to become a set of animals that would move from sea and water onto land. As the Cambrian period occurred, trilobites, which were anthropoids, and had jointed limbs began to emerge.

Latin names for many of these earlier creatures may overwhelm some readers, but Dr Gee’s vivid descriptions of these plants and animals provide fascinating mental images of these beings that lived so long ago, such as the land-dwelling amphibian, Eryops, “which looked like a bullfrog imagining itself as an alligator. A brief history of life on Earth by Henry Gee is a short history of life on earth, concise but wonderfully told. Dr Gee begins by sharing what we have pieced together so far about the birth the planet and its structure to the unexpectedly quick appearance of life, from the first stirrings of slimy membranes ensconced within cracks in rocks, that then gave rise to distinct single-celled microbes, to the advent of cellular cooperation and specialization, the appearance of multicellular life, and its evolution into a plethora of increasingly complex and specialized forms. I use a musical term intentionally - this feels like a well-crafted piece of music, pushing us on to the big finish.