How an algae fossil discovered in China could change the linear history of human evolution
“Cell is the fundamental building block of life on earth”
Chuanlinggou Formation, North China: A group of Scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery in which they found microfossils of eukaryotic cells as old as 1.63 billion years old.
This study suggests that the multicellular life forms that we see today (for eg; Plants, animals, humans etc.) had their inception much earlier than we had previously thought.
Prokaryotes: Single-cell organisms, believed to have occurred around 3.8 billion years ago
Eukaryotes: Multi-cellular organisms, believed to have occurred around 1.05 billion years ago (as previously believed)
The new discovery has pushed back the origins of Eukaryotes by about 70 million years.
Multicellularity is the backbone of all complex life that is now present on the planet earth, through this discovery scientists have started to look at the timeline of evolution a little differently now, this study could provide us with a grander view of life.
In 1989, Q magnica; the Eukaryotic cells’ microfossils were first found in Northern China, but due to poor photography of those fossils and not enough funding no one paid attention to it.
But the interest in this discovery was again sparked in 2015 by Maoyan Zhu and Lanyun Miao, paleobiologists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’s Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology.
These new found Eukaryotes are assumed to have reproduced asexually and they also show photosynthetic properties which are present in algae.
Conclusion
Multicellularity is hard to evolve and thus these findings which already push back the previously thought dates of the origin has forced scientists to think in new directions and new possibilities.
This study could prove remarkable and transformative if these findings hold up.
References:
Research paper published in Science Advances: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi30ZyPs4eEAxXt1TQHHSi7DEMQFnoECAwQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.science.org%2Fdoi%2F10.1126%2Fsciadv.adk3208&usg=AOvVaw2emrsI2VeO4cBh1t7qaYCn&opi=89978449
