"I'll bet we haven't seen the last of these weirdies."

How weird is this?

The fractal patterns look complex, but Narbonne says their self-similarity means that very simple genomes - expected in early organisms - would suffice both to assemble individual frondlets and to control their assembly into larger structures. That would explain why the rangeomorphs evolved first.

They accounted for over 80% of fossils early in the Ediacara period, when there were no mobile animals or traces of burrows. But they declined as more mobile animals evolved, apparently unable to compete, or perhaps being eaten themselves.

Read more over at Newscientist.

How weird am I? I'm listening to John Adams's Naive and Sentimental Music. Ouch. And I know where the post title quote comes from. Double ouch.