[Vision2020] Earth Biological Life Birth/Death Timeline: Bacteria Rule!

[Ted Moffett]

I posted yesterday that the Earth has arguably no more than about 1
billion years left as a viable biosphere due to the well understood
physics regarding the inevitable evolution of our sun, unless
incredible events change this outcome (AI Singularity may result in
seemingly impossible miraculous technology: http://www.kurzweilai.net/
).

But this requires clarification that it may be possible some life
survives past 1 billion years into the future, bacteria (Apollo
mission left bacteria on the moon that survived years: "Earth microbes
on the moon:"  http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1998/ast01sep98_1/
) or viruses.  But eventually the Earth will be a cinder due to solar
evolution as our sun expands into a red giant star.

It is amazing to contemplate that given the about 3.6 billion years
since life (bacteria) first evolved on Earth, animals did not evolve
till about 650 million years ago.  Bacteria are arguably far more
adapted for survival than homo sapies, and may inhabit Earth after our
extinction or migration. Our bodies are composed of astonishing large
numbers of various kinds of bacteria, some critical for health ("The
scientists concentrated on bacteria. More than 500 different species
of bacteria exist in our bodies, making up more than 100 trillion
cells": http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/10/65252  From
Nature Biotechnology: "The challenges of modeling mammalian
biocomplexity":
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v22/n10/abs/nbt1015.html  ).

Perhaps Earth as a biosphere supporting multicellular animal life is
in middle age, not "old age" as I wrote, if some form of animal life
can survive for another 650 million years, still debatable with solar
evolution impacts over that time scale.

Also, the hubris, greed, violence, ignorance and irrationality of homo
sapiens has the potential to catastrophically disrupt the stability of
the biosphere we are lucky to inhabit, to a degree lessening our
chances for long term survival, given the technological power over the
biosphere science grants, sometimes controlled by those following
potentially destructive ideologial fantasies some originating in
culturally primitive pre-scientific periods.  Given current
astonishingly short sighted and greedy behavior and thinking among
many in power in governments, businesses and militaries, severe
disruption of the biosphere appears almost certain.

History of life on Earth:

http://faculty.clintoncc.suny.edu/faculty/Michael.Gregory/files/Bio%20102/Bio%20102%20Laboratory/History%20of%20Life/History%20of%20Life.htm

A brief history of the universe:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/timeline.html#future
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett