The first life was.... fractal

[Tglad]

If you haven't seen this Attenborough documentary, it is excellent, here's the clip:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Xux-uey6OEE&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/Xux-uey6OEE&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>

He talks about it a little more here (go to 7:45):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/11/science-david-attenborough-richard-dawkins

[Lee Oliver]

Thanks for the video link. It is quite interesting isn't it.

[Madman]

Nice one. Thanks!

[Prokofiev]

+1 !

[bib]

Thanks for the link. I have always thought that life is fractal by essence. DNA is the coding formula, and the meiosis is the iteration itself.

[Prokofiev]

That's right.
The complexity of multicellular life can arise from iterating one simple rule. 
You just need a simple and elementary DNA for that. Ideal in the context of the beginning of life.
Simple rules, complex result we are in the heart of fractals.

[jehovajah]

This shift in thinking is not only welcome, it is long overdue. My researches show that the Fractal nature of life is only the smallest part of it . When i start from his simple rule: everything is fractal under some iteration, i find that the whole universe is no longer random, or chaotic, and everything is connected at the deepest levels and at all scales.

However, as exciting as this paradigm is , it is in fact most clearly expressed by Pythagorean Philosophy, albeit in idioms of the day.

Rotation seems to be the fundamental iterator at all scales.