How we think complex cells evolved - Adam Jacobson
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-we-think-complex-cells-evolved-adam-jacobson Imagine you swallowed a small bird and suddenly gained the ...
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What if you could absorb another organism and take on its abilities? Imagine you swallowed a small bird and suddenly gained the ability to fly. Or if you engulfed a cobra and were then able to spit poisonous venom from your teeth. Throughout the history of life, specifically during the evolution of complex eukaryotic cells, things like this happened all the time. One organism absorbed another, and they united to become a new organism with the combined abilities of both. We think that around 2 billion years ago, the only living organisms on Earth were prokaryotes, single-celled organisms lacking membrane-bound organelles. Let's look closely at just three of them. One was a big, simple blob-like cell with the ability to absorb things by wrapping its cell membrane around them. Anothe...
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What if you could absorb another organism and take on its abilities? Imagine you swallowed a small bird and suddenly gained the ability to fly. Or if you engulfed a cobra and were then able to spit poisonous venom from your teeth. Throughout the history of life, specifically during the evolution of complex eukaryotic cells, things like this happened all the time. One organism absorbed another, and they united to become a new organism with the combined abilities of both. We think that around 2 billion years ago, the only living organisms on Earth were prokaryotes, single-celled organisms lacking membrane-bound organelles. Let's look closely at just three of them. One was a big, simple blob-like cell with the ability to absorb things by wrapping its cell membrane around them. Anothe...
