On 1 February 1871 Charles Darwin wrote about these publications to Joseph Hooker, and set out his own speculation that the original spark of life may have been in a "warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts,—light, heat, electricity &c present, that a protein compound was chemically formed". Darwin explained that "at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed." [1]
"There's strikingly little agricultural innovation in this corner of France" they mused... as the ground shook from tanks and shrapnel bursts.
A glass of sea water seems so peaceful... with its turbulent combat hellscape of voracious protists and viral shrapnel, where you're lucky to make it through a day without being eaten or lysed.