The world may never know smile emoticon I like the virus angle -
   nice twist. I can picture the little virus injection needle
   thing randomly spreading across the planet, transforming certain
   species to jump to their next equilibrium point by transforming
   their internal bacteria which then will help shape the
   development of the*bacterial symbiote species in a different
   direction. I like it better than "random cosmic rays" anyway.
   "oops, flipped a bit from 0 to 1 - time to evolve!" although
   probably more likely All sci-fi but fun sci-fi == Yeah, they
   weren't doing so great by that point. I forgot why - I thought
   it was atmospheric changes but I can't remember. Long time since
   school smile emoticon ==