A very interesting article in the Newscientist reveals fractal patterns in early life.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6162

Extract:

Newly uncovered fossils reveal in extraordinary clarity the strangeness of the Earth's earliest complex life.

The finds show that the organisms were assembled in fractal patterns from frond-like building blocks. They were unable to move and had no reproductive organs, perhaps reproducing by dropping off new fronds.

The creatures, which were neither animals or plants, are called "rangeomorphs". They first appeared on the ocean floor 575 million years ago, after the last global glaciation, and were among the first of the soft-bodied creatures in the Ediacaran period. This biota survived until 542 million years ago, when modern animals diversified rapidly in the Cambrian explosion and most Ediacaran species vanished.

In the beginning, there was the Fractal...