It was hard for him to understand why that man (himself) had troubled himself with all those things with which he (himself) had been troubled.

“Well, it was because he did not know what the real thing was,” he thought. “He did not know, but now I know and know for sure. Now I know!” And again he heard the voice of the one who had called him before.

“I’m coming! Coming!” he responded gladly, and his whole being was filled with joyful emotion.

He felt himself free and that nothing could hold him back any longer.

Leo Tolstoy, Master And Man

The Cambrian explosion and its underlying mechanisms are a great scientific challenge, both for biologists and for those who try to understand the origins of innovation and diversity in nature.

We are at the beginning of a new integrative theory of development and evolution. The Cambrian event can be of extraordinary value in our search for how self-organization, information, and adaptation are related, and how they relate to evolution.

It will be a long journey across the vast ocean of time.

Ricard Solé & Brian Goodwin, Signs Of Life

It is important to remember that all multicellular organisms using sexual reproduction go through a unicellular phase, the unicellular egg and sperm.

Sperm have been shown to acquire DNA from their environment and transfer this DNA to the offspring.

An efficient machinery is present in mature spermatozoa, which can transcribe, splice, and reverse-transcribe exogenous DNA molecules. This mechanism is implicated in the genesis and propagation of new genetic information besides that contained in chromosomes.

Denis Noble, Dance To Tune Of Life

Sex lives of bonobos pose a challenge due to the hang-ups of some human cultures.

A nature documentary shows footage of grooming and frolicking bonobos—the image freezes as soon as the apes adopt positions in which something sexual is imminent. The narrator leads viewers astray with some vague remark, such as that bonobos “enjoy their time together.”

The coitus interruptus treatment.

Some scientists are troubled as well. One wrote that we’re better off ignoring these “weird” apes whose X-rated sex lives “sound exhausting.” Some colleagues even refuse to recognize the sexual nature of genital stroking and rubbing. “Is it really sex?” they ask.

They prefer to label it extreme affection. If I were to show this kind of “affection” on a busy street, I’d be in handcuffs within minutes.

Frans de Waal, Different