{"id":190925,"date":"2024-06-09T20:25:40","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T01:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/johns-hopkins-scientists-discover-unusual-new-hero-in-evolution"},"modified":"2024-06-09T20:25:40","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T01:25:40","slug":"johns-hopkins-scientists-discover-unusual-new-hero-in-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/johns-hopkins-scientists-discover-unusual-new-hero-in-evolution","title":{"rendered":"Johns Hopkins Scientists Discover Unusual New Hero in Evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/johns-hopkins-scientists-discover-unusual-new-hero-in-evolution2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One of Earth\u2019s most consequential bursts of biodiversity\u2014a 30-million-year period of explosive evolutionary changes spawning innumerable new species \u2014may have the most modest of creatures to thank for the vital stage in life\u2019s history: worms.<\/p>\n<p>The digging and burrowing of prehistoric worms and other invertebrates along ocean bottoms sparked a chain of events that released oxygen into the ocean and atmosphere and helped kick-start what is known as the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, roughly 480 million years ago, according to new findings <a href=\"https:\/\/scitechdaily.com\/tag\/johns-hopkins-university\/\">Johns Hopkins University<\/a> researchers published in the journal <em><i>Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta<\/i><\/em><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s really incredible to think how such small animals, ones that don\u2019t even exist today, could alter the course of evolutionary history in such a profound way,\u201d said senior author Maya Gomes, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. \u201cWith this work, we\u2019ll be able to examine the chemistry of early oceans and reinterpret parts of the geological record.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of Earth\u2019s most consequential bursts of biodiversity\u2014a 30-million-year period of explosive evolutionary changes spawning innumerable new species \u2014may have the most modest of creatures to thank for the vital stage in life\u2019s history: worms. The digging and burrowing of prehistoric worms and other invertebrates along ocean bottoms sparked a chain of events that released [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,385,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-evolution","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}