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Nell’ultimo decennio lo sviluppo delle tecnologie digitali e della rete internet ha favorito un cambiamento radicale nel costruire e veicolare i contenuti narrativi speciea carattere scientifico; le singole persone hanno cominciato a produrre narrazioni e a condividerle in rete (Petrucco & De Rossi, 2009). La costruzione di storie digitali e la loro fruizione, Così come avviene per ogni forma di narrazione, costruzione e narrazione di storie digitali favoriscono coinvolgimento e attenzione del fruitore, costituendo una modalità efficace per evidenziare potenziali “elementi di conoscenza” complessi. In tale ottica,la Sezione di Trieste del Museo Nazionale dell’Antartide in collaborazione con ricercatori dell’- International Centre for Theoretical Physics e del Dipartimento di Ingegneria e Architettura, Università di Trieste, ha realizzato un progetto biennale cofinanziato dalla Regione FVG e incentrato sulla figura di Darwin. Il progetto appena completato ha messo in luce il ruolo di Darwin quale studioso capace di applicare l’interdisciplinarietà, e soprattutto di coniugare aspetti delle scienze naturali e sociali.

The evolution of plant–animal interactions goes back to the Early Archean, when the first signals of photosynthesis may have been detected in the Isua Peninsula in Greenland, a phenomenon that is related to the isotopic anomalies of carbon. The first evidence of reliable fossils of photosynthetic microorganisms has been identified by micropaleontologists in the Late Archean and Early Proterozoic. A closely related topic in this geologic time interval is the evolution of trophic relations and metabolic diversification in the microbial world. In the context of the three domains of life, Archea, Bacteria, and Eucarya, the bifurcation of multicellular organisms into plants and animals becomes evident only during the Paleozoic. Cell evolution also leads up to the unicellular dichotomy of autotrophs and heterotrophs. Symbiosis has a strong role to play in the transition to plants and animals in the Phanerozoic. It is timely to focus on the details of evolution in the Cretaceous and Tertiary, where detailed pathways of evolution have been gathered in many geographical regions, including the Karst region of northern Italy. Various experimental techniques have contributed to elucidate the coevolution of plants and animals. A special case of plant–animal interaction is the evolution and dispersal of hominins, including their impact on the ecosystems. A significant development in understanding the evolution of plant–animal interactions is based on the possibility of identifying reliable biomarkers that can characterize its different stages, from the earliest microbes to the extant plants and animals. Such identification of biomarkers labeling different stages of evolution may orient the search for life in the exploration of the Solar System.