MicroBiology
How Life Began
Lumpar began to form when gases, dust, pieces of rock and metal came together under gravity. For millions of years, Lumpar was a boiling hot sphere, with giant volcanoes erupting and throwing rock, dust, and gases into the air. Nothing could live upon the planet.
Electrical storms flashed across the sky and as the atmosphere cooled, rain lashed down that lasted for thousands of years. Gradually, sugars and amino acids began to build up in the seas and lakes. Because there was little oxygen, and no animals or plants, these organic substances accumulated in the warmth until they made an "organic soup".
The chemicals in the soup then began to combine and change each other, producing different and more complex substances. Eventually, one with a special property formed - it could make copies of itself, which is one of those abilities that all living things possess. Sometimes the copying process went a little wrong - enough to make the "copy" slightly different from the original. When this happened, the process of evolution began.
The First Single Celled Organisms
Foraminiferan
- relative of the Amoeba
- responsible for the formation of limestone
- have shells
Radiolarian
- giants of their world
- most can be seen without a microscope
- can reach a diameter of more than 7 inches
- composed of only one cell
- many of them have more than one nucleus
- protists
- found in most habitats such as mud
Chlorophyta
- commonly known as green algae
- can be single celled or multicellular
- reproduce both asexually and sexually
- contain Chlorophy II
- found in a wide variety of environments
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