What triggered the Cambrian Explosion? with Professor Rachel Wood

[@MrLittletube]

It still blows my brain that a simpleton like me who wasn’t smart enough to get into higher education, can now get university lectures on my phone. For years now I’ve been watching professors explain subjects that I’m extremely interested in. I’ve learnt so much. And all for the low low price of handing over my data to big tech. Thank you KZbin. Also. Massive props to this channel. Just discovered it the other day. No bullshit. No frills. Just really interesting content.

[@Transblucency]

I know exactly what you mean. We are incredibly fortunate.

[@kgspvgsp7569]

Yeah even dim wits are allowed to marvel

[@rick4electric]

The GREAT Peter Stampfel whose famous Holy Model Rounders recording of "If You Want To Be A Bird" from the "Easy Rider" soundtrack always makes my Best Of Psychedelia list! Of course it was first to be found on the Morey Eels Eat The Holy Model Rounders record. Funny how Dennis Hopper didn't remember who recorded it when it came time for the extras on the deluxe Easy Rider DVD. I guess he wasn't into music as much as he was into movies.

[@marvinmauldin4361]

So many presentations like this frustratingly and inexplicably turn off the comments. I greatly appreciate having comments available.

[@michaelpdawson]

I was shocked to learn from the thumbnail of this video that Peter Stampfel had released an album in 2017 with Burgess Shale fauna on the cover...because *I* released an album in 2017 with Burgess Shale fauna on the cover. Looks like Stampfel's beat mine by a matter of weeks.

[@Transblucency]

Apparently 2017 was a golden age for albums released with cover art featuring the (somewhat less) enigmatic Cambrian fauna. What genre is your album?

[@michaelpdawson]

@@Transblucency My album *Paleozoic* is in an electronic/prog/ambient vein, so it couldn't be more different from Peter Stampfel's music! Track titles include "Extinction Event," "Silurian Swamp," and "Precambrian."

[@drewastolfi6840]

I've been curious about these things my whole life, really grateful for these talks!

[@pavel9652]

Incredibly interesting research and hard work! I have recently refreshed evolution and origins of life on Earth, and it was great learning! Stay curious! ;)

[@brentweissert6524]

I have been doing a lot of aerobic exercise lately and i'm still gaining weight. now i know why: too much oxygen. i'm not going back to the gym ever.

[@quantumcat7673]

Not at all!!! You are abusing food and you do not have enough integrity to be impartial for that fact! It is remarkably simple: EAT LESS CALORIES!

[@brentweissert6524]

@@quantumcat7673 i was making a joke. lighten up! i am not fat, and i do not, "abuse" food (i would only be abusing myself, not the food, if i were overeating.) GEEZ!

[@kalinmir]

@@brentweissert6524 thats something only a vile food abuser would say!

[@marvinmauldin4361]

"All animals are created equal, but some animals are created more equal than others."-Orwell So instead of follow the water, follow the oxygen. A lot of work went into the collection and organization of this highly informative presentation.

[@ericjohnson1472]

Excellent lecture, very informative 10/10

[@JamesElliven]

James neville

[@winstonsmith8240]

All I know is, I'm glad most of them are extinct. They're hideous looking creatures from my worst nightmares. Bloody enormous too, some of them. 😱 It was like being at the most boring party ever, then discovering a fully stocked wine cellar.

[@rickrobitaille8809]

What's the smoking gun..😃🇨🇦

[@johnmudd6453]

Well you can't blame me , I was nowhere near it at the time. A big boy did it and ran away !

[@katherandefy]

Explosion just means life had started and eventually biodiversity got a foothold. And here all this life is being able to know itself more and more.

[@Tossphate]

There are loads of fossilized worms at the beach down the lane from my house in South Wales. I'd love to know what period they're from.

[@pansepot1490]

Google is your friend. Look for geological information about the rocks in your area. The fossils are the same age as the sedimentary rocks they are trapped in.

[@Tossphate]

@@pansepot1490 Thanks for the advice. Carboniferous limestone.

[@fisterB]

So they are somewhat younger then...200 million years or so?

[@stupidas9466]

They are from a rainy period. You're welcome.

[@rogerstone3068]

Thinking of two and a half million years as a very brief interlude rather puts human history in its place, doesn't it? Human intervention in the history of our planet must be like a flash-bulb going off. Let us hope it is more like switching on a light, actually, not a flash-bulb.

[@paularchibald7734]

Thank you for the lecture. I think you need to consult an oceanographer with your contention that cold water is causative (related?) to lower productivity. This seems to involve coding hypo-oxygenated as blue, euxinic as red. You posit that this is temperature rather than O2 levels, and then proceed to the "warm water is good for growth" hypothesis without explication. Cold, deep upwellings such as La Nina /El Nino semidecadal cycling do not seem to represent low-growth areas; rather the opposite. We do not have the data to support your contention about water temperature supporting speciation. It is, instead, correlatory not causative. The Cryogenian may well be the point of animal evolution, not the Totonian. Or it may be both heat (energy) and the paucity of heat later that set us on the path to -- us.

[@margotbw4660]

Thank you for walking us through your methods and data! Really interesting studies!

[@wayneegan7356]

Everything that has been discovered and explained has had 0% supernatural causes 😂

[@CV_CA]

4:56 I have a trilobite fossil. It is 507 million and 12 years old. Why the 12 years? Because when I bought it 12 years ago they told me it was 507 million years old.

[@rickrobitaille8809]

Thankfully these soft bodies survived..its humbling🌐

[@tomschmidt381]

Interesting overview, like most things as your understanding increases the more complex the underlying process.

[@seanleith5312]

I can't believe we are allowed to talk about the Cambrian Explosion, because that makes Darwin look bad, in today's PC academia, Darwin is the new God.

[@tomschmidt381]

@@seanleith5312 Only theists argue Darwin is a god. He gets a lot of credit but did not originate the notion life changes over time but he was to first to posit a mechanism. Keep in mind the Cambrian Explosion took place over millions of years. The details are still cloudy but it probably had to do with increased oxygen levels that allowed a more energy intensive life style.

[@seanleith5312]

@@tomschmidt381 Well, "Only theists argue Darwin is a god.' I tend to disagree. It is true that atheists don't use the term, they tend to treat many things as religion: anthropogenic global warming for one, Evolution for another. As you are aware, millions of years, in this context, is not a long time. Regardless what the reason might be, it contradicts the main theory of evolution, or at least it was an exception. That's why Darwin mentioned Cambrian Explosion, and admitted he didn't have an explanation for it. If we respect Darwin as we respect science, we should take his position in entirety, instead of cherry-picking the part that makes us feel good.

[@pavel9652]

@@seanleith5312 Only theists think CE makes Darwin look bad. Scientific theory 90% complete is still better than fantasy book that is 0% accurate.

[@h____hchump8941]

@@pavel9652 stop being racist against Muslims

[@KipIngram]

Namibia makes total sense. It's almost like one could say "that's obvious," but of course it needed to be substantiated with observations. Kudos to everyone who slugged through all this laborious work to gather all this data into place - it's great seeing it pay off with a clear conclusion!

[@cavemancaveman5190]

If you accept anything other than crowd funding I have issues

[@kgspvgsp7569]

Huge audio problem, ppl be talking super loud , WE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT ..., then fucking wisper the most important part ......x#v!-aa...

[@rickrobitaille8809]

Oxygen has huge implications to multicellular life😃

[@josegaleano1530]

What about the Avalon explosion that lasted 33 millions years

[@paulcoffey359]

Oh, this is an easy one. It was last night's beef stroganoff.

[@adamrubinger2644]

I just came to see hallucigenia play the banjo...

[@spacelemur7955]

Too bad the audio is so awful. It was very hard to follow.

[@paddlefar9175]

That album was the absolute worst! Damn it was bad!

[@davidwatson2399]

Thank you for the informative video.👍

[@bryan3dguitar]

Very poor audio. Not hard or expensive to fix it.

[@Polymerata]

what the hell is my sleeping self doing here

[@TontonMacoute]

Skip the first three minutes

[@garbonomics]

Most informative clear an concise explanation for the origin of the Cambrian I’ve seen on the internet. Thanks for this fantastic lecture.

[@chrisstevens2706]

The answer is blowing in the wind.

[@이이-n4z8y]

Yea, gifted an Education

[@rickrobitaille8809]

The Varangar period..🥊

[@rickrobitaille8809]

Sorry back to sports 😃🇨🇦

[@ryans3001]

i love this channel

[@thesuperiorbench6307]

Thank u :)

[@ThorkilKowalski]

Super awesome stuff!

[@thespiritofhegel3487]

I am spellbound.

[@mikelooby8362]

So cool

[@trekpac2]

I'd like to hear your take on how the homeobox genes might have played a major role. They exploded from a few to maybe hundreds in about the same time. They are responsible for development of body form involving timing and position of development of body parts. Did an environment of high oxygen all of a sudden in water and in the air lead to an explosion in the evolution of the homeobox genes? Do you have any opinions on this?

[@rickrobitaille8809]

I miss school 🤢

[@palfers1]

Anne Elk (Miss)

[@jonathanturek5846]

The video cover looks kinuh like a grateful dead album cover ! ✌

[@TheLastOilMan]

I can tell you how life 3nds. The earth sequesters all the remaining Co2

[@Nicho2020]

very good content, but disappointing audio quality.

[@SuperSlik50]

It could have been caused by a build up of methane gas

[@kimsikoryak3830]

Absolutely brilliant! Brava Prof. Wood! Congratulations to you and all of your fellow contributors.

[@donaldtrumpuncensored6728]

You are ridiculously interesting.

[@rexdalit3504]

Maybe fruit fly labs could get giant flies via hyper-oxygenation?!

[@dogwalker666]

Sorry insects don't scale up very well, Same as spiders, an exoskeleton dosn't work above a certain size.

[@kennethhymes9734]

Thanks for the education about oxygen and the oceans. Your presentation was both accessible and deep enough to really help me understand the questions being investigated, and to get the argument about causation. And I am going to check out the bluegrass album.

[@rickrobitaille8809]

😄😄😄⚡

[@kansascityshuffle8526]

The Precambrian detonator

[@eschwarz1003]

always wanted to know this information and more like it. great work

[@greggsenne1268]

Not to mention zinc and copper.

[@paneofrealitychannel8204]

Darwin was destroyed by this. But shhhhhh don't tell anyone

[@TheLastOilMan]

Did they write a word each ?

[@longlakeshore]

Easy. Meiosis.

[@notimportant6340]

Well...yes...

[@thhseeking]

Cell Division- Meiosis Will Tear Us Apart :)

[@hojoinhisarcher]

cambrian dynamite

[@420Khatz]

Mad tight of you to rep some death metal on top of all this sick ass knowledge you're presenting us with!

[@anthoniemuller9242]

Should have mentioned: The energy of the organisms above the hydrothermal vents would not have been photosynthesis nor respiration, but thermosynthesis: energy gain from thermal cycling or thermal gradients. See my publications on ATP by a modified version of the chemiosmotic machinery.

[@tommyodonovan3883]

I thought of the deep sea underwater vent animals when she mentioned the three types of oxygen containing waters Anoxic, Dysoxic and Oxic.

[@wonderplanet343]

Sound poor.. echo or small room ? Small mike.. great voice but.. great talk!

[@marc-andrebrunet5386]

You right !👨‍🏫👍

[@bouldersoundguy]

Probably some combination of junk mic, bad room, inexpert implementation, maybe a software issue. As much as I wanted to learn about the subject, I bailed at 00:00:09 to save my ears and my sanity.

[@jimmydakid1063]

If the case for oxygen fueling the Cambrian explosion is true then why didnt life on Earth experience a similar radiation event after the Great Oxidation Event

[@judsonwall8615]

The vast majority of life preceding the GOE was anoxic life, so it wouldn’t have had the same catalyzing effect. There’s a possibility that life became eukaryotic during or right after the GOE though, so it’s arguable that we did get an evolutionary radiation from that event.

[@coryhoffman3060]

Thanks, Rachel! Powerful arguments and intriguing research. I continue to be amazed at all the significant contributions you have made and are making that enhance our geologic understanding of the ancient past.

[@johnwarren6110]

Very poor sound quality and the last words of some phrases are too quiet to hear.

[@rickrobitaille8809]

Yes..progressive science is real science 😃🇨🇦

[@keithgibbins4058]

Could it simply be because there were large numbers of niches available for them to fill. Once the niches were filled it became harder for new species to find suitable niches.

[@AudioPervert1]

the word "trigger" itself is misleading. Since all such change or abundant rise of life and variety happened well over 60 million years (Approx 570Ma to 515Ma) - and the scientists can argue till kingdom come over the lack of evidence.

[@DJCA_UK]

I don't understand how all niches can become filled. Once you have a new species, you can have its specialist predators, its parasites, its cohabitors, its cleanup crew, its...

[@billschauer2240]

The poor audio make it hard to follow the arguments in some places.

[@tommyodonovan3883]

Her tin cans need a new string.

[@6346n]

Lovely and very effective presentation. Thank you!

[@alexbowman7582]

The Cambrian explosion is when evolution got smart, it started learning from it’s past, it accelerated species change through previous forms stored in DNA and reappearing in combinations to effect a change and it utilised a feedback loop which kept specific mostly homogeneous until a change was beneficial to some members of the species.

[@metroidragon]

Great presentation, thanks for uploading these.

[@profile_01]

The birth of suffering. How wonderful!

[@keel858]

Excellent presentation for us that want to widen our knowledge. Thank you very much, indeed...

[@bujodrag]

David Attenborough made excellent documentary in 4 episodes called First life. It talks about Snowball Earth and Cambrian Explosion and much, much more. Highly recommended.

[@jasonqian]

Professor Rachel Wood emphasizes the oxygen level changes that played an important role in the Cambrian explosion 550 million years ago.

[@alfreddaniels3817]

Facinating research, thank you so much. Can I ask if other than oxygen levels have been researched and correlated? CO2 levels? Ferro levels? The development of blood and lungs? Magnetism? Vulcanic activity ? Comets ? Solar activity ?

[@alfreddaniels3817]

Can you find a different word for Explosion? Who started that concept ?

[@TomBeakbaneToronto]

Fascinating! Thank you.

[@VaughanMcCue]

Who lit the fuse and how loud was the Cambi bang. Putting aside the big bang.

[@fredkelly6953]

I've heard of the oxygen theory before and it sounds right. My only query would be the lack of gigantism (you did allude to it) during the explosion. We've seen the effects of higher oxygen levels from the early insects to the dinosaurs. In the sea it should have been even more evident.

[@robbie_]

To solve this problem, I'm wondering if there was a part of the ocean very enriched with oxygen where all these animals evolved but that later when conditions changed across the rest of the planet, these animals then radiated out. The original location having been subducted or similar is no longer available to study. It would then look like they just appeared out of nowhere.

[@cavemancaveman5190]

Yall as funny as a sack of baby owls When the vaults opened what wasn't able to survive died.

[@your_being_led_by_your_nose]

I would suppose given just the right level of various elements, life will find a way. Symbiosis. I also understand that geologic time is not “species” time. It might seem that Homo sapiens is strongly limited to believing they are the only extant species that matters. I might find occasion to disagree. Our world might unknowingly indicate its disapproval by eradication of said species. I’m not certain.

[@palantir135]

Very informative.

[@luciusschoenbaum3844]

I was hanging on every word, thank you for this fascinating talk and to those who enabled us all to see it.

[@thomasbramwell9592]

Some people are so pleasant to listen to and she's definitely one of them.

[@stefanlaskowski6660]

A book I read some years ago suggested that the development of eyes played a major role in the Cambrian, as eyesight would be highly advantageous to both predators and their prey. So something of an arms race played out over millions of years.

[@mikeburne7581]

Is the difference in behaviour of the brachipods because they were more mobile and could move into those areas less affected by reducing oxygen?

[@jamesgreenshade6065]

Was there a change in the water level during/ after the Sinsk? Sponges that need to be submerged to feed seem to disappear species that can live in shallower water/ surface or land seem to live. I suspect a second variable might explain the differences between the groups response at that time.

[@marceloribeirosimoes8959]

Nice try...

[@TheVaccineMachine]

God.

[@danweaver4304]

...a very complex multi-faceted problem. Really? Your imagination must be rather limited, doctor. Perhaps the reason is so complex is because it didn't happen? Perhaps billions of creatures were buried within a year's time during a catastrophe of global proportions, wiping out thousands of different types of creatures? Perhaps Evolution isn't even theoretically possible? How does inorganic matter arrange itself? How do organic molecules come together and form the first DNA double helix? And do this while getting continuously destroyed by solar UV radiation? Maybe amino acids miraculously arranged themselves into chains, forming codes more complex than anything humans have ever written? Or maybe there really is a Creator, who Created? Maybe there really was a Great Flood which resurfaced the lithosphere? Maybe millions of scientists have wasted billions of hours "investigating" (imagining) evolution without ever considering the devastating flaws in the concept? Everything we observe today is degrading, breaking down, devolving. If the present is the key to understanding the past, as Lyell insisted, then why on earth would we project a mysterious process of advancement, building up, evolving? Not interested in getting to know your Creator? Fine. But at least recognize all of Nature was created, not evolved, and Nature obeys the Laws established by an unimaginably intelligent mind. The universe had a Beginning, and therefore, it must have had a Cause by something outside of Time & Space. Science cannot "investigate" things which happen outside of Time & Space, and therefore, will never be able to answer the questions: Where did it all come from?, and, Why does it exist at all? Why are we here?

[@76rjackson]

Your reply touting creationism is the ultimate cop out. We can not know so don't even try. Wrong. Life is all laid out in front of us and we are meant to try to understand everything about it. Indeed, the exhortation to Know thyself! is inclusive and comprehensive. You sound like all the foolish people of ages past who pronounced the things we commonly do now as impossible or against god's will. You aren't spiritually evolved enough to understand evolution.

[@danweaver4304]

Hapax Palindrome - never said don't even try. But when your theory is nonsense, it's time to junk it and make progress using common sense. For example: how long did it take for the Indian subcontinent to slam into Asia and thrust up the Himalayas - the tallest mountain chain in the world? Did it take hundreds of millions of years, based on today's rate on increase? Nonsense. Basic physics & evidence from geology & glaciology tells us the process must have been very rapid, or the entire chain would have been eroded (smoothed) by millions of years of glacial activity. But how rapid? If it is posited that the cataclysm which resurfaced the face of the earth initiated plate tectonic movements, then would it be reasonable to expect the motions initiated over 4000 years ago would have obeyed the laws of physics back then, as they still do now? Do you know any physics, or are you just a yt troll? All processes involving movement of massive bodies (such as a tectonic plate) must obey the laws of physics, including the fact that an elastic collision necessarily slows the movement of the two bodies toward one another, as the energy is lost to the upward thrust of the mountain chain, and enormous amounts of heat. Rather than subduction, two massive plates are simply pushing up the highest mountains. So how high were the Himalayas in Noah's day? Because the Himalayas do not exhibit evidence of volcanic activity, we can conclude the upthrust was not terribly rapid in the beginning, but certainly faster than today. Civil engineers have formulas for such things, but my knowledge is limited to simple lumped parameter systems. There are enough details in the "story" of Noah to enable rather accurate details, such as an initial height of the "highest mountains" of about 2 km. The elastic collision must have been either a critically damped or an overdamped system. Solving with final conditions as observed today, one may estimate an initial condition, upward thrust (during Noah's lifetime) of about 20 - 50 meters per year. I've done my job, now you explain to me how plate tectonics can defy the laws of physics, and slowly collide two continents into one another, at the same slow, gradual rate? What's the evidence to support this? Why are these mountains (and the Andes mountains) so young? Please don't resort to insults and ad hominem attacks. Let's give one another some meaningful exchanges.

[@76rjackson]

So you are a biblical literalist benchmarking the "creation" of the Earth with calculations based upon a guesstimate that the bishop of Usher pulled out of his...c ass ock. Who says the Himalayas would have eroded in the time since they've been posited to have been thrust heavenward? I'll tell you who: a trifling few unreliable and unremarkable fringe theorists. You can not take a "common sense-i don't like it so it must be wrong" approach to the disciplines you are asserting that your common sense falsifies and expect to be taken seriously. No matter how well you weave the lexicon of science into your prose, your foundational premise is not based upon even the mystery of faith, something that science can actually respect given there's so much that is unknown about our universe, but rather your premise is fantasy, absurdity, that science moved past centuries ago. Young earth creationism is the Easter bunny of "true believers" aka religious cultists. Science and faith intersect at the big bang as well as other places where the inspiring beauty of the mystery of the universe and our presence in it defies explanation at this point in time. Our pilgrimage is to continue to seek what is deeper within the mystery of the beginning and thus, learn better to understand ourselves. The tools of science are by far the best way for us to do that because science seeks truth whereas religion eschews it in favor of belief. For 10s of millenia we only had religion to answer the questions of what it means to be human. Nowadays, we can do a hell of a lot better than counting begats in a garbled translation of mythology, cribbed from a neolithic society, in terms of determining the timespan of our world's history.

[@davidbenyahuda5190]

I concur, the fact that socalled scientists in the main cannot accept the fact that Life comes from Life is very telling indeed. Some seem to believe that I'm white and I say so is evidence enough.

[@JENKEM1000]

Well for starters, there was no "explosion". The Cambrian was a long time and rates of body plan change during the Cambrian don't exceed those of other time periods.

[@pjbth]

This is the first time I've heard that. Prior to the Cambrian we know of a dozen or two Phyla of animals and that number triples in 25 or 30 million years and most of the surviving phyla started than as well. In terms of species maybe it was similiar to other periods but in terms of higher order division of plants and animals I didn't think any other time period was as active and that's what the explosion refers too.

[@tommyodonovan3883]

Don't get yer panties in a knot there Copernicus.

[@BananaCake26]

"Explosion" refers to the appearance of all major body plans in the fossil record within a geologically short time frame.

[@VaughanMcCue]

@@tommyodonovan3883 Copper nickers would be uncomfortable.

[@pennyvoll1169]

God triggered the Cambrian explosion, lol

[@jaymz1999]

Really? Who told you that?

[@pennyvoll1169]

@@jaymz1999 the Bible , Gods word!

[@pennyvoll1169]

@@jaymz1999 read Genesis chapter 1 and you'll see the story 😀

[@jaymz1999]

@@pennyvoll1169 Who told you that the bible is the words of gods?

[@eclepticearth]

@@jaymz1999 please don’t feed the Troll.

[@Nick-kr7ne]

she talks about in-equality in terms of increased oxygen consumption enabling predation - Equality is not a concept applicable to this domain lol - it is applicable only to human social arrangements lol - Scientists eh, cant see whats in front of them...

[@williamchamberlain2263]

Hardly - if one population develops a better method for absorbing or transporting oxygen their metabolic rate is no longer equal to another population: there's an inequality.

[@Nick-kr7ne]

@@williamchamberlain2263 there is always an inequality - plants for example

[@williamchamberlain2263]

@@Nick-kr7ne true, but if you're talking about C3 vs C4 photosynthesis there's a _distinct_ inequality in water efficiency of photosynthesis.

[@paulwallis7586]

La Nina is in an oxygen-depleted area? Or very close to one? That's a major weather pattern there. Odd indeed. Thermal conduction must be affected by water content. Extremely interesting lecture.

[@larrymacdonald4241]

I think you need to apply something similar to moore's law of CPU's to this " explosion ", you need to include intelligence as well, as the organisms grow over hundreds or thousand, millions of years, they accumulate knowledge within the DNA which is past down, and when the knowledge is was great enough, it exploded into new types of life. I believe one of the functions of DNA is to pass down the knowledge, very much like humans, past down from mother and father to offspring and as the knowledge grows it results in things like the industrial revolution.