The microbial brain—gifted with long-range transport, data trading, genetic variants... and the ability to reinvent genomes—began its operations some 91 trillion bacterial generations before the birth of the Internet. Ancient bacteria, if they functioned like those today, had mastered the art of worldwide information exchange.... The earliest microorganisms would have used planet-sweeping currents of wind and water to carry the scraps of genetic code...

Ch.1 Creative Nets in the Precambrian Era - Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000)