According to Stephen Baxter in the Manifold series, in at least some of the multiverse, cephalopods become the dominant intelligence in the universe.

Didn’t Ford have an EV back in those days?

This explains the big uptick in MAGAt and Kremlin-bot crying everywhere.

These appear to have been acquired in connection with the early vertebrate mode of undulatory swimming. We’re stuck with the result of that, but it’s conceivable that evolution could have taken another turn elsewhere in the universe.

I see the use of 13.7 billion years ago, but I thought it was established to be 13.8?

Another question would be why outbreaks occurred repeatedly?  Was there a type of cyst or something that victims would shed that would allow for a new colony of bacteria or virus to reemerge later?

Ah, but there’s likely a reason that two pairs of limbs was successful for large multicellular creatures that had brains larger than that of various insects, arachnids and whatnot.

All of that is nice, but how about recommending him something that costs less than $30,000, so he can have TWO of them???

But Romulus was!  Man, those folks can’t catch a break in either timeline! 

“Life is to be found everywhere, but where is mind?”

Try developing electricity underwater for example.

They need a lot more attention these days.

Yeah, medium rare with pork is generally a bad idea...

The more I ponder it, the more I wonder if we might actually end up with other “tool using” life forms that look a lot like us.

You can already watch those meltdowns here in the comments.

More seriously than my other post, is that the formula both has solid reasoning behind it, and is also fairly speculative. How could it be any other way?

That’s what the Greys WANT us to think, as they abduct us for our precious bodily fluids.

It’s time for Skynet to invent the Baconator!  It’ll find the pigs in their hidden spots, preventing them from adapting, and it can add delicious cheese and Whataburger sauce to the resulting sandwiches!

Judgment-impairing drinks, tokes and smokes - the new evolutionary filter for humankind.

Now we get to watch the investigation of idiot Musk having SpaceX try to legalese and bureaucrat-game the system to block other potential competitors.