CRADLE OF LIFE IN SEA
The saltingsstof the blood of presentday land animals constitutes questionable evidence of their descent from seadwelling invertebrates, Professor W. J. Dakin, of the University of Sydney, reports in “Nature,” London. -The amount of sodium chloride in the blood of marine invertebrates is very close to that present sea water. For land animals the ratio Ranges quite notably. This has been explained on the assumption that the sea was by no means so salty in the distant past when their ancestors emerged to conquer the land. Professor Dakin checked this theory by a chemical analysis of the blood of a newly-disco\ ered variety of Australian fresh-water crab whose ancestors game from the ocean only a few generations ago. He found that its blood salinity already was less than half that of its close relatives who are ocean dwellers. The blood sal-.
inity, instead of. remaining constant through countless generations, evidently changes very rapidly in response to a new environment. All that can be <le- . ducted from the-saltiness of the b’oo.d j of land animals, Professor Dakin concludes, ds that the beginning of life itself probably took plafie...in. tfie sea.
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Hokitika Guardian, 3 October 1931, Page 8
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193CRADLE OF LIFE IN SEA Hokitika Guardian, 3 October 1931, Page 8
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