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Oxygen burst seen before the birth of complex life

Air to breathe may have spurred the evolution of large animals.

A sharp increase in the amount of oxygen in the air may have sparked the evolution of complex animal life. Chemical analysis of 580-million-year-old rock sediment shows oxygen levels in the deep ocean surged upwards just before large creatures appeared on the sea floor.

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Posted by Nicola Jones on December 8, 2006 05:43 PM |

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Could we guess that maybe some early life lived in and out of oxygen rich environs, and could have relied on aerobic respiration as well as oxygen-less methods of energy generation? How about glycolysis? I've seen a study that claims that hypoxia in fish results in the upregulation of telomerase.
Telomerase is a key player in cancer(overexpressed) as well as being transiently expressed in growth of adult stem cells, stem cells, fetuses.
Could the hypoxia in fish be a survival mechanism throwback to the early days of oxygenated water when some organisms relied on both oxygen rich as well as oxygen depleted waters? Could hypoxia in humans result in cancer from the activation of telomerase? Is this why excercise lessens the chance of cancer?

Posted by: Robert Smith | December 11, 2006 07:05 PM

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