Carl Sagan is one of my personal heroes. The legacy of his incredible book "Cosmos", and his documentary of the same name, was extended with the new Cosmos Docu-Series hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

This is the second of a 13-piece collection - one per episode of the series. It is my attempt to pay tribute to Sagan, and to spread his humbling influence farther in the world.

Episode 2 is entitled "Some Of The Things That Molecules Do" and focuses on evolution and the origin of life. Genes, DNA, mutation and both natural selection and artificial selection (via selective breeding by humans) are explained. It is a fascinating episode and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of creating something inspired by it.

Biology is one grand mess, and mutations are purely random. And yet it is a beautiful, elegant mess, those random mutations having given rise, through natural selection, to all of the beautiful, complex life we all know and love, including us. This was the main thing I tried to get through in this piece.

Darwin first conceived of his theory when he noticed the differently shaped beaks of the finches of the Galápagos islands, so I was extremely happy when the bird shapes appeared out of fractal randomness. The metaphor was perfect.