"Steve Dufour" <stevejdufour@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:744cc401.0312152012.5368316@posting.google.co
> "Proto-cells" then began to form on the warming Earth. And finally by
> 3.7 billion years ago, the first life appeared along the coasts of
> small, new continents in the form of "biofilms" and layers of
> microbial mats whose fossil forms have been discovered in recent
> years.
>
> Within a few hundred million years, those microbes had learned to use
> sunlight for energy, growth and reproduction. After a few million
> years, more advanced life forms emerged. And after that, the pace of
> evolution and growth of diversity increased swiftly, he noted.
>
> "Understanding the nature and timing of this ascent of life is crucial
> for discerning our own beginnings," Des Marais said. "This
> understanding also empowers our search for the origins, evolution and
> distribution of life elsewhere in our solar system and beyond."

I read in the paper today they've discovered human dna in coral.

Anyway it's all futile in the end - even if we don't destroy ourselves, or
get destroyed, the sun will burn out & toast the earth.....

Life is obviously teeming through the universe in various forms, but maybe
the human version is one-off...?