• Question: How did the first living thing come to life? Like how was the first animal/ human formed?

    Asked by to Daren, Lynne, Phillip, Simon on 23 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Lynne Thomas

      Lynne Thomas answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      That is a really tough question and I’m not sure we totally know the answer! One theory is that in the early stages, the world was comprised of just atoms which originally came from the stars. Under the right conditions, these atoms reacted together to become molecules and as time went on these became more and more complex. The conditions on earth were exactly right for these molecules to evolve, originally into very simple organisms with just one cell but over time (a very long time!), by random evolution, these beings became more and more complex until animals and humans were formed. Because these events were random, we have ended up with a diverse range of species on earth.

    • Photo: Daren Fearon

      Daren Fearon answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      It is likely that single-celled organisms were the first thing. These then evolved into multi-cell organisms which in turn became plants and animals.

    • Photo: Phillip Manning

      Phillip Manning answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      The origin of life on Earth is argued from many possible ‘start’ points. Most, if not all, involve the ability of the life form to reproduce. There are a large number of organic molecules in the environment that are suitable building blocks for life. If these were associated with the growth of minerals, such as clays, that reproduce inorganic structures….the organic molecules might well have ‘learnt’ to reproduce through the replication/growth of such minerals. Experiments have shown several such routes, but my favourite is the Earth being seeded by organic molecules in comets that crashed to earth.

      The first human is a slightly easier question to answer. Homo sapiens evolved around 500,000 years ago. We can use information from the mitochondrial DNA that our mums pass on to us, to better understand the evolution of our species. We evolved from hominids that looked very similar to us, but were a distinct species…we can trace back the origin of our species through the many fossils that now inform palaeontology and biology of our evolution.

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