Alessandro Grippo's Earth Sciences Pages

Alessandro Grippo, Ph.D.

David Attenborough's "First Life" BBC tv documentary



In this movie, David Attenborough takes us back in time to the very roots of the tree of life, in search of the very first animals. After a very quick overview of what happened during the first 3.5 billion years of Earth history, Attenborough finds evidence in fossils and living animals of an extraordinary period in Earth’s history, from about one billion to half a billion years ago, when single-celled organisms suddenly gave way to multi-cellular animals. From the first eyes that saw, to the first predators that killed and the first legs that walked on land, these were creatures that evolved the traits and tools that allow all animals, including us, to survive to this day.

This movie is not available yet in the United States, but only in the United Kingdom, where it can be found on DVD. The DVD can be purchased through Amazon UK, but be aware that it will only work on region 2 DVD players.

The movie can be seen on YouTube. Links are provided below. Because of this, there is no guarantee that the links will stay there forever. Also, the movie consists of two parts, called respectively "Arrival" and "Conquest". Each part has been divided in four separate segments, and as such it is presented on this page as a way to visualize and summarize what we talk about and discuss in class.

 
First Life, part 1    -    Arrival Last Updated  •  March 17, 2016    

In Arrival, Attenborough describes a sequence of events that stops at the Precambrian / Cambrian boundary, including the change from very primitive forms of life (subject of your lectures in William Schopf's "Cradle of Life") to the first multicellular animals, touching up on subjects from stromatolites to Snowball Earth and the Ediacaran Fauna, and featuring prominent paleontologists such as Dr. Mary Droser from UC Riverside.
  1. segment 1: Introduction, Early Life, Stromatolites, Snowball Earth

  2. segment 2: Earth warms up, the amount of Oxygen in the Atmosphere increases, first multicellular organisms appear

  3. segment 3: from fractal, self-similar organisms to mobile organisms with bilateral symmetry

  4. segment 4: Animals become complex, Sexual Reproduction, or Gene Swapping, increases the chance of survival of species. Sex speeds evolution: greater genetic variations, and more quickly. Appearances of animals with a mouth with teeth, a stomach, an anus.
 
First Life, part 2    -    Conquest Last Updated  •  March 17, 2016    

In Conquest, Attenborough describes the evolution of life starting from the Cambrian li
  1. segment 1: from simple animals to the Burgess Shale fauna

  2. segment 2: from the Burgess shale fauna to Trilobites

  3. segment 3: from Trilobites to first breathing organisms on land

  4. segment 4: Land: early plants, arthropods but then also vertebrates: Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds, Mammals

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