Prehistoric Life During the Cambrian Period

Prehistoric Life During the Cambrian Period Before the Cambrian period, 542 million years ago, life on earth consisted of single-celled bacteria, algae, and only a handful of multicellular animalsbut after the Cambrian, multi-celled vertebrate and invertebrate animals dominated the worlds oceans. The Cambrian was the first period of the Paleozoic Era (542-250 million years ago), followed by the Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian periods; all of these periods, as well as the succeeding Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras, were dominated by the vertebrates that first evolved during the Cambrian. The Climate and Geography of the Cambrian Period Not a lot is known about the global climate during the Cambrian period, but the unusually high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (about 15 times those of the present day) imply that the average temperature may have exceeded 120 degrees Fahrenheit, even near the poles. Eighty-five percent of the earth was covered with water (compared to 70 percent today), most of that area being taken up by the huge Panthalassic and Iapetus oceans; the average temperature of these vast seas may have been in the range of 100 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. By the end of the Cambrian, 488 million years ago, the bulk of the planets land mass was locked up in the southern continent of Gondwana, which had only recently broken off from the even bigger Pannotia of the preceding Proterozoic Era. Marine Life During the Cambrian Period Invertebrates. The major evolutionary event of the Cambrian period was the Cambrian Explosion, a rapid burst of innovation in the body plans of invertebrate organisms. (Rapid in this context means over the course of tens of millions of years, not literally overnight!) For whatever reason, the Cambrian witnessed the appearance of some truly bizarre creatures, including the five-eyed Opabinia, the spiky Hallucigenia, and the three-foot-long Anomalocaris, which was almost certainly the largest animal ever to appear on earth up to that time. Most of these arthropods left no living descendants, which has fueled speculation about what life in succeeding geologic epochs might have looked like if, say, the alien-looking Wiwaxia was an evolutionary success. As striking as they were, though, these invertebrates were far from the only multicellular life forms in the earths oceans. The Cambrian period marked the worldwide spread of the earliest plankton, as well as trilobites, worms, tiny mollusks, and small, shelled protozoans. In fact, the abundance of these organisms is what made the lifestyle of Anomalocaris and its ilk possible; in the way of food chains throughout history, these larger invertebrates spent all their time feasting on the smaller invertebrates in their immediate vicinity. Vertebrates. You wouldnt have known it to visit the earths oceans 500 million years ago, but vertebrates, and not invertebrates, were destined to become the dominant animals on the planet, at least in terms of body mass and intelligence. The Cambrian period marked the appearance of the earliest identified proto-vertebrate organisms, including Pikaia (which possessed a flexible notochord rather than a true backbone) and the slightly more advanced Myllokunmingia and Haikouichthys. For all intents and purposes, these three genera count as the very first prehistoric fish, though theres still a chance that earlier candidates may be discovered dating from the late Proterozoic Era. Plant Life During the Cambrian Period There is still some controversy about whether any true plants existed as far back as the Cambrian period. If they did, they consisted of microscopic algae and lichens (which dont tend to fossilize well). We do know that macroscopic plants like seaweeds had yet to evolve during the Cambrian period, giving their noticeable absence in the fossil record. Next: the Ordovician Period

A video game characters résumé stacked with relevant usable keywords

A video game characters rà ©sumà © stacked with relevant usable keywords The beginningsHave you ever played the game Getting Over It? It’s a terrible, terrible game created by Bennett Foddy where you play as a man sitting in a cauldron, and the entire purpose is to climb up a very large hill with a hammer. Sounds simple in theory, but in the words of the creator, this game is made to hurt people. And it does that well.We used to play this game on our breaks. I say used to, because after falling off the cliff so many times and having to start over, Michael (the owner of the company) uninstalled it from Steam in a fit of climbing rage (or moment of clarity, depending on how you want to see it). And all was well in the land of Full Stack Talent.A few days after The Great Uninstallationâ„ ¢, we were all working quietly at our desks and Michael turned to us and said â€Å"Wouldn’t it be funny if we made a rà ©sumà © for a climber, but like, we put a bunch of developer keywords in there and see if any recruiters reach out to us?†And th us, Django Ovrette was born.We created a doc file on our shared Google drive and off we went writing a rà ©sumà © for a professional climber, stacking it with as many dev keywords as we could. My personal favorite is â€Å"pretty huge python, or php, as I like to call him.† We spent a couple of hours perfecting the rà ©sume (stopping to cry-laugh a few times), creating a google voice number and a new email address, and when we were done, off Django went to the internet! We then searched for a few of the keywords (like php, yii, django, etc) and there he was in all his glory.Django, in all his glory. Can you catch all the references? Hint: there are a LOT.  hbspt.cta.load(2785852, '9e52c197-5b5b-45e6-af34-d56403f973c5', {});We went back to work, and waited for the calls and emails to roll in – and it didn’t take long. We posted the rà ©sumà © on January 26th (a Friday, for reference) in the afternoon and had emails when we came in on Monday morning.Being t hat I’m a huge data nerd, I took the liberty of compiling some information on the recruiters who reached out to Django.As of January 26th (keep in mind, this is less than a month), Django has received:110 emails50% (roughly) were form letters – these came mostly from big recruiting agencies50% (roughly) were personalized for Django15 phone calls8 voicemailsOf these communiquà ©s, 2 voicemails stood out. One was a recruiter from a small, local firm stating that she wasn’t sure what Django’s role at Dick’s was, but she wanted to speak to him about his experience, because â€Å"clearly you have some dev knowledge, but I can’t tell if this is a joke or not.† She ended up calling Django twice and emailing once.The second voicemail came from a senior recruiter at a mid-sized recruiting company, and it started with her laughing and saying this was the best thing she had seen in 17 years as a recruiter. She continued by saying she printed it out and passed it around the office, and asked for a call back because she wanted to know who was â€Å"really behind this.† We saved that voicemail.Our takeawayWhat we learned from Django’s foray into job searching is that, unfortunately, most big recruiting firms frankly don’t seem to actually spend any time on you. Form letters, keyword searching rather than actually reading your rà ©sumà ©, emails only with no call follow up, etc. Django saw much better communication with the folks who came from small recruiting agencies – they reached out with personalized emails and followed up with calls. Being that we are a small recruiting agency ourselves, we really appreciated seeing the parallels, and it reinforced that we’re doing it right by going for quality over quantity.Words of adviceBig guys, don’t forget your candidates are people. Spend the time to actually read their rà ©sumà ©s and see if the qualifications actually match instead of running their CV through a keyword search. We know your time is limited (trust us, we do) but so is the candidate’s – and they deserve to have someone who is dedicated to finding them the best career match possible.Small guys, keep it up. Your personal touch and solid, constant communication and follow-ups are immensely appreciated, and probably make the difference on whether a candidate/client will want to work with you or not.- About the authorThis article was written by Roxanne Williams, who works at Full Stack Talent, a technology recruiting agency in Tampa, FL.