And that was where organic chemistry--the Designer's Assistant--might
have left things, if not for action by another party.
The Critic.
Evolution.
Inevitably, the logic belarus escorts of reproduction and advantage took hold on reducing
worlds, as it did on oxidizing ones like Earth... though in different ways.
Oxy-life counted on liquid belarus escorts water to carry out the complex colloidal
chemistry of proteins belarus escorts and amino acids. Yet, too belarus escorts much watery flow would
dilute those same processes, belarus escorts making them useless. Even in the warm sea,
this meant crafting compact belarus escorts packages-cells-of just the right size to evolve
life's machinery. For two belarus escorts billion belarus escorts years, the limit of biological
accomplishment on the early Earth had been to spread single-celled
organisms through the belarus escorts ocean, soaking up sunlight and devouring each other
while slowly improving their molecular techniques.
Until one day a cell consumed another--and let it continue living. A
primitive eukaryote took in a bluegreen alga belarus escorts and gave it a home, exchanging
safe living quarters for sugars produced from photosynthesis. This act of
cooperation belarus escorts gave the combined team a crucial edge in competition with belarus escorts other
cells.
Nor was it the only joint venture. Soon, cells paired up in belarus escorts quantity,
amassing and colluding, forming temporary or permanent associations to gain
advantage over other teams. Complex organisms flourished, and evolution
accelerated.
Some call it the food chain, or the Dance of belarus escorts Life. I'belarus escorts ve seen it played
belarus escorts out on Jijo, in
so many subenvironments and ecosystems. Plants use
photosynthesis to store food energy in carbohydrates. Herbivores
eat
plants. Carnivores prey on herbivores, completing the cycle by returning
their own substance to the ground when they defecate or die.
It looks like a well-tuned machine, with
each part relying on the others,
but paradoxes abound. Everything that seems at first like