【アメリカ語勉強日記】(1/8)

Two weeks have passed since I wrote the last entry... It took a much longer time than I expected to write the review on "Tyranny of merit". Anyway, I restart now.
I finished the first chapter of "The vital Question" last week and don't remember the content precisely. But the following are the points:

* The result of evolution, such as two-sex, nucleus, is predictable in terms of energetic constraints.
* Brief history of life on earth. Between 4 and 4.4 billion years ago, a tranquil ocean world existed. The composition of the atmosphere at that time is almost the same except for the existence of Oxygen. From the isotopes analysis of carbon-12 and carbon-13, life-like bias existed 3.8 billion years ago, while we can't clearly say it's the exact life. We can observe clear fossil records from 3.2 billion years ago and most forms of metabolism can also be found at that time. (Figure2 in the book is a good summary.)
* Oxygen is not the key to control evolution. If so, we should discover the evidence of polyphyletic radiation at the time of the great oxidation event. In polyphyletic radiation, we are expected to see various types of evolution, which we witness in the Cambrian explosion. But what we see is all eukaryotes have similar components,(around p33)
* The author insists on the importance of monophyletic radiation by the change of cell structure.
* If sex, nucleus, phagocytosis is the result of natural selection, same but different traits should appear in the evolution tree, but doesn't.
* Archezoa is once considered as the ancestor of life but they just lose mitochondria during evolution. But archezoa substantiates the emergence of eukaryotes is not a result of natural selection.
* Evolution of eukaryotes is independent of environmental factors such as the Great Oxidation Event.
* Gibbs free energy is an important factor for life.
Summary from 50th page is an almost perfect summary and I now feel that my writing was a waste of time.

There is nothing in the fossil record, or in phylogenetics, to suggest that complex life actually arose repeatedly, but that only one group, the familiar modern eukaryotes, survived.
Lane, Nick. The Vital Question (p.50). Profile. Kindle 版.