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Scientists say they've discovered cookie-shaped fossils in Gabon that may represent the earliest-known multicellular life, dating back 2.1 billion years. But when you go that far back, claims about fossilized life get complicated.
For one thing, we're talking about multicellular life: The traces of microbial life appear to go even further back in time - to 3.45 billion years ago, based on the way that mats of organic material have built up in ancient sediment. In the multicellular category, the oldest candidate has been a 2 billion-year-old, centimeter-scale, coil-shaped fossil known as Grypania spiralis, which might have been a giant bacterial or algal creature.
The new discoveries, described in today's issue of the journal Nature, show more evidence of structure and measure as large as 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) in size. "On the surface, the fossils resemble irregularly shaped cookies with split edges and a lumpy interior," the researchers, led by Abderrarazak El Albani of the University of Poitiers, report in a news release.
El Albani and his colleagues collected more than 250 fossils from a well-known geological formation in the West African country of Gabon, and put them through rounds of micro-CT scans to chart their 3-D structure. Based on that structure, the researchers deduce that the organisms were built up through cell-to-cell signaling - and not merely deposited together as a microbial mat.
© CNRS Photothèque / Kaksonen
Many of the fossils found in Gabon measure more than an inch wide. Watch a video report about the discovery from TODAY's Dara Brown.
"The relative complexity of the fossils ... lead El Albani and colleagues to conclude that they are unlike any living bacterium," Philip Donoghue and Jonathan Antcliffe of the University of Bristol write in a Nature commentary on the research. However, Donoghue and Antcliff say additional work will have to be done to confirm that these cookies are more than mere assemblages of one-celled organisms, as well as to verify they were living 2.1 billion years ago rather than during a later age.
The 2.1 billion-year mark is significant because scientists think Earth's atmosphere made a major transition around 2.4 billion years ago. Before that time, there appears to have been no oxygen in the air. Even 2.1 billion years ago, "the atmosphere was still a toxic mix of greenhouse gases, with oxygen making up only a few percent of modern levels," Donoghue and Antcliff note.
"This bacterial world was undergoing the greatest episode of climate change in the history of the planet: pumping out oxygen, drawing down carbon dioxide, slowly transforming the Earth into the world we know," they say.
The bottom line is that these rock-hard cookies could shed light on how life as we generally know it arose from the alien-seeming, one-celled organisms that predated our planet's Great Oxidation Event. But this is still just a tiny piece in a puzzle that will take years of hard work to put together.
In addition to El Albani, the authors of the Nature study, "Large Colonial Organisms With Coordinated Growth in Oxygenated Environments 2.1 Gyr Ago," include Stefan Bengtson, Donald E. Canfield, Andrey Bekker, Roberto Macchiarelli, Arnaud Mazurier, Emma U. Hammarlund, Philippe Boulvais, Jean-Jacques Dupuy, Claude Fontaine, Franz T. Fursich, Francois Gauthier-Lafaye, Philippe Janvier, Emmanuelle Javaux, Frantz Ossa Ossa, Anne-Catherine Pierson-Wickmann, Armelle Riboulleau, Paul Sardini, Daniel Vachard, Martin Whitehouse and Alain Meunier.
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Excellent article Alan! Slowly but surely the scientists are unraveling the origins of life here on planet Earth. It's so amazing how they find such ancient lifeforms and are able to date them fairly accurately. I guess the 3.45 billion and 2.1 billion year old lifeforms found sure prove the bible's lies of genesis are just that, lies. Thanks to the little microbes that could that oxygenated our atmosphere so more complex life like humans could evolve. We owe our existence to these little critters.
Eric... you seem to need to read the Bible again... more closely. Genesis talks about the creation of the Earth from particles gathered from around the universe. Many of the fossils found in the Earth now are from long ago places. The Earth itself is not billions of years old... but particles within it are. Therefore... scientists are not unraveling the origins of life here on planet Earth. They are merely coming across fantastic wonders of the universe.
But if you want to believe you "evolved" from a little circular microbe... to each his own.
Er,...what Bible have you been reading? Genesis says nothing about the creation of Earth from particles gathered from around the universe. Rather, the Bible speaks of Earths creation from the word of God. It doesn't explain the days it took. How do you measure time before you have a sun or aplanet to revolve about it. All relative. God's days are impossible for Us to measure. If you so believe in a God. Why people insist on this Creation of life on Earth happening only about five thousand years ago is beyond me. Some guy works back through recorded history then guess-timats time spans based on biblical stories and comes up with an arbitrary time span that gets latched onto with a ridiculous ferver. By that idea we make God small. Why not make the days of the bible be about two billion human years and watch how close the time scan matches scientific theory. Peronally I like how these "cookie" fossils look so much like a ying/yang symbol. K Jung might have liked it too.
"Er,...what Bible have you been reading?"
The Bible written by men from myth passed through Mesopotamian and surrounding regions for much more than 10,000 years. The one with the same humanistic teaching fables mixed with historical and prehistoric fact that pervade Zorastrianism, Hinduism, Judaism, Animism, The Greek Pantheon of Gods, Ancient Egyptian Religions, Islam, Cattle Cults, Christianity, and on and on and on... The one divided, re-written, castigated, enthroned and relished by regional and timely politics - losing a section here - adding a section there for well over three thousand years just in the written codex. That Bible.
I hope Jillian will share with us what translation she's reading..that's gotta a very free translation.
Jillian I believe in Unicorns too....
Read Genesis and the Big Bang by Dr. Gerald Schroeder. Wonderful insights from a nuclear physicist. It also offers a scientific solution to the whole "6 days =/= 14 billion years" problem.
How did the sweet and merciful Moses, get these tiny creatures aboard his lost ark?
Even if you don't like Jillian's comments, this one is one hell of a cruel reply.
bicfi, you must have evolved from nothing at all, which makes you a BIG FAT ZERO!!
Omg I am getting so sick of all this earth being created 6,000 years ago stuff! I don't know where people are getting this idea. Not all people who believe in God believe the earth was created just 6,000 years ago, let me just put that one out there.. I know I don't. This article does nothing to disprove the creation story..nor does it prove it. Why must we always have debates on every scientific article. It's really getting annoying. It must be a fad. lol But no, seriously I believe in God but I for one do not believe the earth was just created 6,000 years ago. Its obvious it's a lot older than that. And to everyone debating on this creation vs evolution stuff..can we all just shutup and let time prove whats truth? Thankyou.
All I have to say is the earth is 6 billion years old (yalls number not mine), has had asteriod attack after meter attack, went through the Permian Triassic event which wiped out 90% of species on earth. Then went through the Cretaceous-Tertiary event which wiped out another 60%. By the way, was that 60% of the remaining 10% which means we were reduced to 4% of all species were left at one point? All this while life on other planets have been wiped out. Either we are the luckiest planet in the universe of Isaiah 45:18 is true. "For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who established, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord, and there is no other." For the record what constatuites life is highly subjective but I've never seen anyone being charged with murder for killing a micro organism. I'm just saying.
Monster was that a typo or did you reference life on other planets that has been wiped out?
What other planets had life on them previously? The only reference to possible life was that meteorite that was from mars and the study of that rock was inconclusive.
Slow down there Eric, your praising a theory as if it is fact. As improtant as scientific discoveries are, talking off like that is dangerous. I just hate seeing people talk so fervidly about something they've only just read. This is an extrodinary discovery none the less.
Two point one BILLION years ago this little fellow was happily swimming around in whatever passed for his environment and today we're looking at his fossil and re-writing the history of multi-cellular life on this planet.
2.1 BILLION years.
Oddly, that makes me wonder how long it would take to erase all surface signs of past life on a now seemingly lifeless planet like Mars? I know this is out of left field. But let's just consider for a moment that 2.1 billion years ago, while this creature was alive and well on this planet, that a more advanced lifeform, or maybe plant life or possibly even artificial structures created by living creatures existed on Mars. Then something happened to the atmosphere causing most of the surface water to evaporate or otherwise disipate.
I wonder how long it would take for radiation and planet strikes and general decay and deteriorization to destroy all trace of life on the surface of the planet?
I know there are probably folks out there with great big giant brains that have considered this possibility and I would sure be interested in reading something about it.
WOW, 2.1 billion years old. It's like boneless chicken, it's mind-boggling.
PEACE
Evidence of civilized construction? Not long. Especially with the harsh erosion conditions showing up on Mars today. Evidence of life at all? Possibly forever. Of course, surviving evidence would be buried in hard rock, so just putting a couple of rovers with cameras wouldn't find much either way. The real problem with life on Mars is timing. The first life showed up here 3.45 billion years ago, but Earth had only finished cooling to a point where liquid water could form on the surface some 3.5 billion years ago. Meaning life developed in just 50 million years! Assume Mars had a similar cooling period, and any life probably couldn't get far beyond the single-cell form before it all died out, and that's assuming the toxins present in Martian soil are a relatively recent addition.
Hi C.Smith
The conditions of the Archean Earth are matters of considerable debate amongst the geologists who specialise in its study, with models varying between near boiling water to almost totally frozen oceans. We do know some kind of life appeared ~3.5 Gya (gigayears ago) and suggestive traces from 3.8-4.0 Gya are also known. Certain remnant minerals suggest water oceans (maybe briefly?) all the way back to 4.4-4.2 Gya, so who knows? There's not a lot of minerals available for study from the Hadean or Archean - often the crystals studied for clues are smaller than the proverbial grain-of-salt such conclusions need to be taken with.
Hi Nicholson,
2.1 billion years is mind boggling indeed. To get a handle on things, we may visualize the human/geological history in terms of distance. So let's say 1mm (width of a needle) = 1 year, then :-
Hi Nicholson,
2.1 billion years is mind boggling indeed. To get a handle on things, we may visualize the human/geological history in terms of distance. So let's say 1mm (width of a needle) = 1 year, then :-
a) Width of a chair (60 cm) away from you, Christopher Columbus discovered America (600 years ago)
b) About the length of a school bus (15 m) away, mankind started agriculture (15000 years)
c) 4 miles from your home (7 mil years), mankind branched away from the apes
d) 190 miles from Oklahoma City (say, Dallas, Texas), the dinosaurs lived and died (300 mil years)
e) From Oklahoma City to San Francisco (1300 miles), the above specimens in Gabon lived (2.1 billion years)
f) From Oklahoma City to Anchorage (Alaska), the Earth and Solr System was born.
Sorry for the double post.
Sharma uses the largest needles I have ever heard of, but his timeline is right. I have seen this treated as Earth's time as a year, with dates given for the appearance of various evolutionary "events." On that scale, man appears in the middle of December 31st.
I wonder what religious nuts will say? Don't they believe life only existed 7 thousand years ago?
Genesis isn't a science text book, but it isn't a book full of lies, either. Theology doesn't operate the same way as science does, dealing with matters of purpose and morality rather than physical phenomena, and religious debates focus on reason and conscience rather that quantifiable evidence. The two don't necessarily cancel each other out, simply because the two speak in different languages, and although there are areas of overlap, generally when the two are successfully dissociated from each other they offer unique insights into the nature of existence.
Well put, Chris. However, I must make mention of the fact that I have had numerous debates with people ranging from religous zealots to armchair disciples and NONE of those debates focused on reason. Young earth creationism, flood geology and the like are examples of "anti-reasoning".
I have had many similar experiences, and you are correct. Few are as unreasonable as young earth creationists, etc. However, I have been in many debates with atheists who insisted that their concrete disbelief was based on science, yet who relied wholly on arguments based on ethical reasoning rather than quantifiable evidence. I have also encountered a repeat failure to understand the difference between natural scientific skepticism, which can be equated to the statement "I do not know," or "I do not believe it is so," and strong antithesis, which can be equated to the statement "I know it is not so."
I look forward to the resolution of this conflict, though I realize it is unlikely to happen soon, especially when their are so many political opportunists and demagogues willing to exploit the false dichotomy between science and religion for personal gain -- also as there are so many people who invest emotion but not thought into their beliefs. Maybe though with a bit of civility we can expedite the process of reconciliation.
I encourage everyone interested in the subject to read Genesis and the Big Bang by Dr. Gerald Schroeder. There is a feasible scientific explanation joining a (relatively) literal ancient Jewish interpretation of the Bible with modern cosmology and Big Bang Theory. I won't spoil anything for you, though. :)
I've read The Science of God, also by Dr. Gerald Schroeder where he talks about the same thing (maybe a summary of Genesis and the Big Bang? I didn't read that one), before going into areas other than just creation. Another great book.
The Bible provides inaccurate accounts of creation. It's no different than giant turtles carrying the world, majestic flying creatures fallen from grace and the thousands of other imaginative, but human explanations.
"Modern" Biblical interpretations provide some revisionist thinking on the part of religious scholars and their believers, and at the peril of everything else as written is also an "interpretation" by doing so. Welcome to the slippery slope of reason.
Of course, after the creation story, taking on all of God's strange temper tantrums and logic puzzles offered in just in the Old Testament and then followed by the weird "trilogy" offered up in the New Testament but never mentioned in the "original", you've got to have "faith beyond reason" when reading such stuff.
On a personal note, "believers" of all types are so focused on justifying their own beliefs (which, to me, they become pretty shakey and defensive when you start asking basic, rational questions) and who condemn others for "non-belief" (to a point where previous religious zealots killed off non-believing brothers in retribution) makes spending an enternity with them sound much more like hell. Personally, I'll take a fascinating scientist and spend all eternity with that guy engaged in much more interesting conversation, in my opinion. Unless, of course, God gets angry and decides to force me into mindless and continuous worship instead.
There is a clear link between the atmospheric conditions that evolved to allow for the formation of life here on earth. This is completely consistent with the possibility of life developing on other planets. We will someday be able to evaluate atmospheric conditions on distant worlds with enough accuracy to "guestimate" the probability of life. Carbon based life is practical and proven by Earth's development. Science fiction that points to the possiblity of life forming from base silicon, or some other element, does not seem to be as likely. I think that we are very close to some very amazing answers. It is my guess that while there would be vast differences in the form life would take, substantially, it would be developed under a specific roadmap, very much like here.
Darrell the one thing that the Universe is constantly doing is surprising us. I am pretty excited in that the future holds so much learning and knowledge in store for us.
Whi knows what type of life is out there, I wouldnt be surprised if there is life out there that isnt carbon based. If that is the case (Which at current we wont find out for a very very long time) then anything is possible in this fantastic Universe that we reside in.
This stuff is so awesome it blows my mind.
Our current understanding of biology and chemistry suggests carbon-based life is probably the only option. Silicon can form repeating polymer chains, a critical facet to becoming a life-base element, but it doesn't have nearly the variety of such structures to allow for the variability necessary in life.
Of course, that's just our current understanding. There was a time we thought the stars must be holes in the sky, too.
Well folks, I don't think anybody would accuse me of being a "believer" in the bible or any form of organized religion.
But, just for argument, isn't it possible you are all correct on this subject? In the cosmic scheme of things and the time-line of the universe we occupy an extremely young world and human beings have existed on this planet for a teeny-tiny (scientific measurement of time there) fraction of a second.
So, mythologically speaking, (aw geez I hate to get into this) isn't just possible that "god" or "zeus" or "yahweh" or "zorg" or whatever is operating on the universal cosmic time line and not our silly little minutes, seconds, hours, days, months, years, millenia?
Cosmically-speaking (that would be god-time) the earth is only 6,000 years old. But in human real time (to us anyway) it's been BA-ZILLIONS of years (sorry, I didn't mean to dazzle you with a big number like that, my great big giant brain just works like that sometimes).
So, c'mon. Let's cut each other some slack. It's possible we're all correct. What? Too existential for you? Ok, You folks go over there and believe whatever you want to beleive, and you other folks come over here we'll NOT believe anything we don't want to believe and it will be OK! See how simple that is?
Now, can we just get along and play nice with each other?
I still want to know if a doomsday rock hits the earth, wipes us all out, causes the atmosphere and all the water to leak out into space, how long will it take for all evidence of us to be erased from the surface? Gimme the answer is human time. Two billion years? Two trillion years? A freaking BA-ZILLION years?
Surely someone out there with a great big giant brain can tell me the answer to this simple question.
PEACE
Skip I am no expert, far from it but I would think that for all the water, air ect to leak out into space a rock the size of the moon would have to hit us, which would result in an occurance such as that formed the moon (which is a theory for how our moon was formed) anyhow life could be wiped out on earth by big rock but if the rock was big enough and did pop the atmosphere bubble so it all went out into space then nothing on the surface of the earth would survive as the earth would become a big molten ball, basically everything would be melted into the magma.
The problem here is a "believer" cannot allow others to believe what they want. That is at odds with their belief and spreading the gospel. It's the core of wars, conflicts, and the seed of repression. We can queue in the Spainish Inquisition, Crusades, Presidential Directives on stem cell research, bans on contraceptives in much of Africa, and government sanctioned Biblical explainations in public schools about earth's origins.
You see, the "believer" never stops at "what 'you' believe" has merit. What "they" believe trumps everything else. With that mind set and their "leaders" condemning everything as "against God" makes them a real threat to freedom and free-thinking people.
No "they" cannot "get along" with everyone else when their own argument cannot be "wrong" or influenced and fueled by others of their ilk reaffirming such nonsense.
TPokeys:
Sorry to hear you have had such bad experiences with 'believers.' As one myself, I am perfectly content to let others believe what they want. I don't feel threatened by anyone at odds with my beliefs. I have had many great, stimulating discussions with friends with opposing belief systems. But as different as our opinions are, we never ended up 'opposed' to one another. Belief, if it is real, is voluntary and personal and living, not some dead static thing that isn't open to change or modification by experience. I believed when I was 20 - do I really think I knew everything there was to know at age 20? Not at all, but my belief and faith has grown since then where, for others, their faith has declined and withered. So live and let live. It will all work itself out in the end. In the meantime we discuss and debate in a civilized manner.
There are a lot of folks who aren't religious who have doubts about the chance origins of life and the mathematical probability of successful macro-evolutionary theory (Fred Hoyle's Panspermia?). My doubts come out of a brief study of Information Theory (Claude Shannon, H.P. Yockey and others) as it relates to the genetic code, and the odds against genetic code writing itself through chance mutations. Genetic code is software and no engineer will tell you that software writes itself out of thin air and especially on a very noisy channel. Anyway...
The 6,000 year thing seems preposterous given that we are seeing starlight from 14 billion years ago. I think the fossil record is the physical record of God's creative process on this planet. One day is as a thousand years to him, and a thousand years is as a day. So to argue about days and timespans doesn't seem productive. The general progression of creation as laid out in Genesis does seem to follow what we see in the fossil record.
Cheers.
The first multi-cellular life was a cookie? No wonder predators evolved!
And please don't complain that this is a silly posting - it's no more sillier than Jillian of Concord's claim that Genesis describes the Earth being created from "particles gathered from around the universe." I don't think either of the two - count them two - creation myths in Genesis says that? And if you pick one myth over another, you are implicitly accepting that the Bible cannot be taken as a literal account of the origin of our world.
I hope the dating holds up - I'm always worried that first claims in the press tend toward the sensational. But even if it's off by quite a bit, this is certainly the discovery of a new and previously unknown lifeform. Perhaps it was even one of the first non-autotrophs and therefore our ancestor!
The development of photosynthesis in marine organisms was essential in
oxygenation of the atmosphere. Land plants are far younger as in 400 million years ago.
The oceans have been here 3 - 4 billion years and have no real explanation as to why they
came about...hydrogen and oxygen coming together in a very explosive way to make water.
For a long time people believed that the Holy Books were actual historical and scientific facts. Now with all the discoveries we have we can take those books more analytically and separate myths form history. Unfortunately, some people reject scientific and historical evidence to hold on to what generations before believed. Strangely, the Universe behaves like if Zorg, Allah, the Trimurti, Yahweh or God designed it for a purpose that we do not know or for creating me.
Life seems to evolve based on known properties of matter. here on earth it evolved in one way, in other places it might evolve under parallel paths or different paths. It is great to find out what creatures predate us. I do not have any recollection of the 13.7 billion years that passed since the apparent creation of the Universe. Suddenly one day here I was. I never made a decision to exist and hate the idea that my destiny is extinction.
The way that life evolved on Earth shows that climate changes, geological changes and celestial impacts directed this planet to evolve human life and therefore me, Lila Sovietskaya. :-) i must be the reason that the Universe came into existence. After me, if the Universe continues or not, is your problem not mine. A reminder that each of us is also a product of unique historical circumstances. if World War II did not happen then my ancestors would not have met and i would not be here. Even procreation is game of chance. Imagine millions of sperms of our ancestors, each one with its own set of genetic code meeting one of the thousand of egg, each with its own genetic code. Each one of us is a winning lottery number. That lottery game is true for all species
Science lets us feel good about ourselves when we figure out one of the many puzzles that God created - and we feel God-like; the Bible lets us feel good about the Creator - and we feel Christ-like.
Science is always looking backwards for answers, for proof; Christianity looks forward with hope. And time does truly move in only one direction.
If my God and my Christianity turn out to be myths then I have nothing to lose when I die; if they're not then non-believers will lose everything.
There's so much we don't know, so much we can't comprehend - and yet we pat ourselves on the back when we discover what we believe to be 2.1-billion-year-old multi-cellular fossils.
The universe and our world are WONDERFUL, unbelievable works; however, my time is best spent focusing on the Creator as opposed to the creation! And remember - you can't have one without the other!
Perhaps we should spend more time analyzing why the Cubs can't win a world series - or perhaps our descendants will be trying to figure that out 2.1 billion years from now!
Thankyou!!!!
It just kinda looks like it could sustain a meteor ejection to another planet......reverse engineer that dna and see if survives flash freezing!!!
Thanks Pirate C for responding to my question.
I guess this 2.1 billion year "cookie" has me wondering if such finds await us on Mars and other worlds beleived to be dead.
I'm as anxious as anyone else to see a lander do some serious digging on Mars to see what's beneath the surface, but not at the expense of taking care of our own here on earth.
I have NO background in science and like Will Rogers, I only know what I read in the newspaper (or blogs) but I can't help but wonder if Mars might have supported more advanced life forms who may have built structures and roads, etc. Could all surface evidence of that have been erased by eons of radiation and planet strikes once most of the atmosphere and water was gone?
We all have our favorite little theories and I'm particularly fond of that one.
It looks like the guys (and gals) with the great big giant brains have decided that Mars once had abundant water and may have been able to support life, if only briefly. But these are really only educated guesses and we won't know for certain until we go there and see what lies beneath the surface.
All I'm asking is...is it possible that our little 2.1 billion year old cookie had a distant cousin on the red planet? And is it possible that more advanced life forms evolved but all evidence of their existence has disappeared.
I find it frustrating that every time topics like this come up on this blog we get bogged down in religious debate. Bible, fact or fiction? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I think we should agree to disagree, respect each other's belief's (or non-belief in my case) and get down to discussing and learning what science has to say about our own planet and our closest neighbors.
I still wonder if some creature on Venus will some day be able to look at the lifeless ball we once called earth and wonder if it could ever have supported life...just as we look at Mars today. That's all.
Thanks for the education Alan,
PEACE
Skip there could very well have been life on mars, Mars has huge planet wide dust storms, that in itself could have eroded any surface proof of life and burred any fossils under hundred to thousands of feet of dust/dirt ect.
The mars rovers have proved there is water on mars and they only dug a few inches into the soil. Who knows what is on mars, there could be many fossils that would be proof of past life, there could be buried city's or proof of a previous civilization.
The one thing no one can doubt with looking like a complete moron is that humanities future is out there in space. It is imperitive to our future survival as a species as well as our advancment in the technoloigical sense.
Space explorations has provided mankind with countless benefits thru technology and Space exploration will continue to do so.
What we are spending currently on it is very sad as it should be tripled if not more, we waste more money on companies and wars.
I wish I could live longer then the human life span because the future is going to be a amazing ride (that is if we dont blow ourselves up)
I do doubt that any creature will be looking at earth from venus as venus temp is too hot for any form of intelligent or organized life other then high temp microbial to exist.
The one thing we can count on is that in 4 to 4.5 billion years the sun will swallow mercury, venus and the earth when it goes red giant.
Skip: Do you think that if Earth became a desert there would be no evidence of all our structures? How many years would it take for Hoover Dam to erode into a lump of concrete iin the Colorado River? If you wonder if there was a high civilization once on Mars, how long ago would it have been? Did it evolve in place or was it colonized from "outer space?" Bear in mind that fossils in earth often take some digging, but some weather out of the rock. I think it possible that single-celled, or even multicelled life once existed on Mars, but not "little green men" with structures.
If high temp microbials can exist on Venus, who's to say they can't evolve into high temp multicellular life forms? :D
High temperture microbes on Venus are just speculation by prople who ignore the face that heat breaks down the proteins that even microbes are made of. There are bacteria tht live in the boiling water of hot springs on Earth, but these are cool compared with Venus.
Amen PC, you said it all much better than I could. I believe the next 100 years are going to be very exciting (if we survive of course) and I predict the things we learn about Mars and Venus are going to be very surprising. I wish I could be around to see it, but at age 60 I'm afraid another 20 years is the best I can hope for.
I would love to see what is buried beneath the dust of mars and what is hidden by the clouds on Venus. I don't dare hope that there is life currently on either world but who knows, there could be evidence of past life. Heck, it could turn out those Martian "canals" were constructs afterall. Doubtful, but you just never know.
Is it Titan that they think could have life in the water believed to be beneath the surface? Or is it liquid methane, I can't remember?
Not to open up any cans of worms here but I am fan of good science fiction and I recently read a fun series which featured a "methane breathing" life form. It just got me to thinking, as all good Sci-fi should.
Have a great Fourth of July weekend fellow Americans and to the rest of the blogosphere,
PEACE
Hey, Skip, don't give up so easily. The next twenty years will see a lot of geriatric advances. I'm nearly 20 years older than you are and I expect to live another twenty years...at least. And enjoy it. Either of us should make it to 110, if we stay healthy. That's the trick.
You too, Skip!
rat back at cha
I can barely imagine what a living hell earth's surface still must have been over 2 billion years ago. Far more numerous back then, the incoming meteors ranging from small-sized to incredibly huge must have been busily reconverting large portions of the crust back into magma. Wherever this occurred, any existing bodies of water in these impact regions must have been instantly reheated to the boiling point or even re-volatilized into steam. Plus, there were sizable areas of non-stop volcanism creating vast lava fields and belching up immense amounts of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere.
Amidst all this and in spite of it, Life more-or-less said, "No big deal. We'll just start small, go slow for a while, and after all this commotion dies down, we'll take it up a few notches!" Yeah, way oversimplified. Then again, one can remark that there's certainly one statement that's not only simple but true. Life, same as any other natural force in this universe, seems to be stubbornly unstoppable.
Gib: Well said. Go back and look at Fantasia (1940) and see how Disney's people interpreted the Precambrian in "Rite of Spring." Consider also that the poles on these hot planets are cooler than the equators. Life, as you put it, consisted of strands of dna but some of these "learned" to replicate themselves. Natural Selection (pardon my French) allowed those that could to continue. We tend to think of Natural Selection at the multicellular level, but I am confident that it was influential in forming the first cells, as well.
Gib, Cinclodesfuscus...
Life, once it's there, does seem unstoppable. It's getting from chemicals to Life that is the problem.
Evolutionary forces, ie. Natural Selection, etc, (according to the theory) don't produce life (ie. the necessary genetic code), they just modify existing genetic code (mutating usually for the worse). And for Evolution to work, those forces would have to ADD new code that works, by chance. Evolutionary processes could not have produced the first living cell but they might have modified it once it existed. I have not read any convincing scientific works describing how 'molecular' or 'chemical evolution' could have produced the first living cell. Car parts chunked together at random do not equal a Chevy with the engine running, the lights on and the radio playing (static in this case) and complete plans for a Chevy factory in the trunk.
Unless you can point to published references showing that molecular 'evolution' can do that...? Would be very interested to see those...
And 'Fantasia' was an emotionally romanticized view of evolutionary theory which is just a completely random and non-teleological process. According to science, there is no 'will' behind the advancement of life from simple to complex.
Peace.
@joe-1947120: The Bible DOES talk about the number of days it took, and that fact DISPROVES the Bible. The complete lineage from Adam to Jesus is in the Bible, and the Bible says how old Adam was when he died, and during the period where people lives so long (into the 900's) it gives the ages of those people at the time they produced a descendant - therefore there is a definite Biblical length of time man has been on this planet (~6,000 years), and the evidence that man has been here much longer is well beyond overwhelming.
J2R:
I dunno... Hebrew scholars say that the word yowm, translated 'day' in Genesis, has multiple uses, both literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term). From 'Lexical Aids for the Old Testament' edited by Spiros Zodhiates...
'3117. Yowm; day, a number of days, some time, year, life (when in the plural); today; in the daytime, on the same day; at present, now. A point in time and a sphere of time are both expressed by yowm... It can be 24 hours, time in general, a specific point in time, or a year...'
Also this from 'The Word' by Isaac E. Mozeson from Yeshiva College...
'While the Hebrew letter Yod 'Y' is more likely to take an 'I' in Greek, the Yod takes an A in AEON as well as in AGONY. Any theological agony over the geological age of the earth is unnecessary, as 'YOM' ('day' - Genesis 1:5) is better translated as AEON (an age). 'YOM' is the term used in phrases like "ancient times" and "the Middle Ages." 'YOM' can infer any period of time.'
Peace.
Give it up J2R. We've moved on. We're discussing possible science-fiction scenarios, not mythology.
I think we'll find methane-based life on Titan and we'll discover vast cities under the dust of Mars which will raise important questions about our future and the possible futures of other planets like Venus. Who knows what will happen as the sun begins to cool and the "goldilocks zone" extends to include Venus and perhaps EXCLUDE the earth?
Who cares about superstition-based mythology created by bronze-age wandering shepherds? To paraphrase Elmer Fudd, "Shhhh, we're hunting 'ay-wee-uns' ."
Pigs + Singing Lessons = WASTE OF TIME
PEACE
Yes, Skip, just like in the "Martian Chronicles."
Skip - reading (and appreciating) science fiction is definitely one of mankind's most valuable occupations. Your body (and mine) will probably never get off the Earth, but your mind will wander the Universe. I wish you "good hunting," and throw in a Happy Birthday tomorrow to you and all your American compatriots (that's you, too, Alan!)
Thanks Des, it is so nice to have a civil and intelligent communication with someone via this blog. So often we get "blogged down" :-) with ridiculous discussions of religious belief and completely inappropriate political talking points filled with misinformation. It is just a joy to exchange ideas and pleasant greetings.
And for those of you argumentatively inclined. I do not criticize your belief system or lack of same. I just take issue with the discussion of your beliefs via this blog. I believe you have the right to believe whatever helps you to understand this world and your place in it. I just don't necessarily want to hear about it every time there is a new discovery like the 2.1 billion year old "cookie" (I love that description).
My very best to you and yours wherever you are in the world and life,
PEACE
Rakesh Sharma,
I owe you an apology, I somehow overlooked your kind response to my original post. Thank you very much for your explanation, that is actually quite helpful.
PEACE
It's definitely an amazing find at the very least. I'm always glad to see a statement like this accompanying articles of this nature:
"... could shed light on how life as we generally know it..."
Speaking of mythology attempting to connect itself to old objects to lend it credence--notice how the "cookie" resembles the japanese "tama" perfectly which was an object held to represent the soul.
I think its an interesting coincidence. Almost as interesting as our eternal hunger for cookies. Makes you think!
i love all of the people bashing each others' ideas and acting so condescending when in reality they have no more proof to what they are saying than anyone else. stop acting so holier-than-thou and realize that no one knows any of this for certain. anyone could be spot on and no one would know it. hopefully we'll know the absolute truth eventually. curiosity is an insatiable beast...