Earliest signs of life: Scientists find microbial remains in ancient rocks
Western Australia's famous 3.5-billion-year-old stromatolites contain microbial remains of some of the earliest life on Earth, UNSW scientists have found.
Western Australia's famous 3.5-billion-year-old stromatolites contain microbial remains of some of the earliest life on Earth, UNSW scientists have found.
Earth Sciences
Sep 26, 2019
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When Australian scientists presented evidence in 2016 of life on Earth 3.7 billon years ago—pushing the record back 220 million years—it was a big deal, influencing even the search for life on Mars.
Earth Sciences
Oct 17, 2018
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The earliest morphological traces of life on Earth are often highly controversial, both because non-biological processes can produce relatively similar structures and because such fossils have often been subjected to advanced ...
Astrobiology
Nov 7, 2022
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As the Mars Rover sets out to look for evidence of life on another planet, scientists back on Earth suggest viruses played a key role in creating stromatolites, our planet's earliest lifeforms.
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 19, 2021
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A study that used a new digital library and machine reading system to suck the factual marrow from millions of geologic publications dating back decades has unraveled a longstanding mystery of ancient life: Why did easy-to-see ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 30, 2017
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Could there be a way to find bacterial structures on another planet? And if so, how important might these bacteria be in making a planet life-friendly? These are some of the questions that could be answered through studies ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 8, 2016
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Ancient clusters of rock that preserve some of the oldest microbes on Earth occasionally possess mysterious branch-like formations. Now, scientists think they know what might have caused this enigmatic branching—changes ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 14, 2016
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New research from a University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science-led science team provides new insight into one of the world's most diverse and extensive ecosystems of living microbes. The ...
Ecology
Feb 3, 2016
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The widespread disappearance of stromatolites, the earliest visible manifestation of life on Earth, may have been driven by single-celled organisms called foraminifera.
Earth Sciences
May 28, 2013
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Researchers are providing new information about the 'diet' of microorganisms on the early Earth. By studying 3.45-billion-year-old rocks, the team uncovered clues about ancient microbial metabolism.
Earth Sciences
Nov 21, 2012
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