The appearance of atmospheric oxy gen on earth b tween one and two billion years ago was a dramatic and, for the primitive single-celled creatures then living on earth, a potentially trau matic event. On the one hand, oxygen was toxic. On the other hand, oxygen presented opportunities to improve the process of metabolism, increasing the efficiency of life's energy-generating systems. Keeping oxygen under control while using it in energy production has been one of the great compromises struck in the evolution of life on earth.
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Ross Cameron Hardison (1999) studied this question.
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