• Question: Hello! My question to you is ''do you know the first cell to like on the planet and to evolve?''

    Asked by xXRussian_QuickscoperXx to Rob on 15 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Rob Stanley

      Rob Stanley answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      I have a friend who was studying what the first cells would have looked like. He worked with Dr Nick Lane, who has written books about how life first got started, if that interests you further.

      When life first got started, it was likely without cells (or possibly cells made out of holes in rocks) it would have just been the DNA and other processes. But in order to be able to survive better, the first life needed to find a way to keep all its bits together and be able to control what gets into and out of the cells, so they evolved a cell membrane and these would be the first real cells. They would have looked a lot like our cells, but less complicated, as lots of the things we have now (like mitochondria) would have evolved later.

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