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Previous studies modelled the origin of life and the emergence ofphotosynthesis on the early Earth-i.e. the origin of plants-in terms ofbiological heat engines that worked on thermal cycling caused by suspension inconvecting water. In this new series of studies, heat engines using a morecomplex mechanism for thermal cycling are invoked to explain the origin ofanimals as well. Biological exploitation of the thermal gradient above asubmarine hydrothermal vent is hypothesized, where a relaxation oscillation inthe length of a protein 'thermotether' would have yielded the thermal cyclingrequired for thermosynthesis. Such a thermal transition driven movement is notimpeded by the low Reynolds number of a small scale. In the model thethermotether together with the protein export apparatus evolved into a'flagellar proton pump' that turned into today's bacterial flagellar motorafter the acquisition of the proton-pumping respiratory chain. The flagellarpump resembles Feynman's ratchet, and the 'flagellar computer' that implementschemotaxis a Turing machine: the stator would have functioned as Turing's papertape and the stator's proton-transferring subunits with their variableconformation as the symbols on the tape. The existence of a cellular controlcentre in the cilium of the eukaryotic cell is proposed that would have evolvedfrom the prokaryotic flagellar computer.

Emergence of Animals from Heat Engines. Part 1. Before the Snowball Earths