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Though Jablonski is more bullish on the survival prospects of unicellular life, there is some comfort for the multicellular among us too.

By the beginning of the Cambrian explosion of multicellular organisms about 540 million years ago, the ancestors of today’s ecdysozoans were already alive and varied in form and behavior, suggesting they arose even earlier.

Genes aren't the sole driver instructing cells to build multicellular structures, tissues, and organs.

"The study implies that key genes involved in stem cell formation might have originated far earlier than the stem cells themselves, perhaps helping pave the way for the multicellular life we see today."

The details of convergent evolution might of course be more complex in the eukaryotes, multicellular organisms like humans or decapods with large genomes, the total genetic material of an organism.