Increase in genomic novelty at the origin of animals

[gbrooks9 (GeorgeB)]

@T.j_Runyon

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Cambrian 'Explosion' - "Hypoxia-Inducible Factors" & Surviving Oxygen Surplus

[Oxygen-HIFs] Scientists are on the verge of answering the age old question of why speciation went into over-drive during the Cambrian Epoch! It turns out that the genetic processes that allow DNA to remain relatively dormant (or in other words, “un-triggered” into any of hundreds of possible and quite specific outcomes) do not do well in a highly oxygenated environment. So as single celled life, like algae, started to produce an increasingly oxygen-rich atmosphere, it began to define just where life could survive. Imagine being a proto-amoeba drifting into a pocket of highly oxygenated water. Suddenly, your DNA starts to fire off sequences triggered by the random encounters of oxygen molecules accumulating within the cell itself. Proteins you need are not being made, because amino acids are being hi-jacked to make proteins you don’t need. Sure, a robust living cell can survive low levels of these kinds of mis-fires … but at a certain point, the cell expires when the internal…