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3.46-Billion-Year-Old 'Fossils' Were Not Created By Life Forms

Posted by Soulskill on from the stupid-tricksy-fossilses dept.

sciencehabit writes: What are the oldest fossils on Earth? For a long time, a 3.46-billion-year-old rock from Western Australia seemed to hold the record. A 1993 Science paper (abstract) suggested that the Apex chert contained tiny, wormy structures that could have been fossilized cell walls of some of the world's first cyanobacteria. But now there is more evidence that these structures have nothing to do with life. The elongated filaments were instead created by minerals forming in hydrothermal systems, researchers report (abstract). After the minerals were formed, carbon glommed on to the edges, leaving behind an organic signature that looked suspiciously like cell walls.

17 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. Baptists are already writing this week's sermon by rmdingler · · Score: 2

    After all, when you're fighting a losing battle, even a hand up from science is a welcome blessing.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:Baptists are already writing this week's sermon by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 5, Funny

      More like the Church of Robotology now that there is conclusive evidence that machines were first and created all life

      Suck it meatbags!

      --
      Wherever You Go, There You Are
    2. Re:Baptists are already writing this week's sermon by quenda · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Nothing has been overturned here. Just a question settled, perhaps.

      Full disclosure: the lead author is Martin Brasier, who just happens to be the guy who discovered slightly younger 3.4 billion year old fossils just 20km away.

      http://news.sciencemag.org/201...

    3. Re:Baptists are already writing this week's sermon by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ah, so no possibility of any confirmation bias there, of course.

      I really hate it when headlines declare something like this as a fact, when clearly everyone involved is just promoting competing theories. The headline should really read 3.46-Billion-Year-Old 'Fossils' May Not Have Been Created By Life Forms. Just because someone published a paper disputing one theory and promoting another doesn't mean we can automatically assume it to be factual.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    4. Re:Baptists are already writing this week's sermon by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Nothing has been overturned here. Just a question settled, perhaps.

      And this is the difference between science and religion. Since its science, we say, "we were wrong - but its cool, now we can move on to find out the truth..

      If this were religion, we'd be fighting tooth and nail, and there would be smear jobs about the scientists liberal tendencies, and stories going around on "How the lord said life was 3.46 billion years old, so it damn well WAS 3.46 million year old fossils.

      Teach the controversy brothers!

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    5. Re:Baptists are already writing this week's sermon by radtea · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The headline should really read 3.46-Billion-Year-Old 'Fossils' May Not Have Been Created By Life Forms.

      And then apply the rule that "may" and "may not" have exactly the same literal meaning. Any headline that contains anything like "may" or "may not" is screaming sensationalism. "Scientists dispute oldest fossils" is informative, "Fossils may not have been created by life" is identical to "Fossils may have been created by life", and is therefore meaningless.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    6. Re:Baptists are already writing this week's sermon by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You take it as gospel or you are shown the door, and any scientist worth his salt will tell you to quit pretending that's science because it's not.

      Never actually worked with actual scientists have ya? These guys and gals argue about everything, and constantly try to disprove their theories and make fun of each other's hypothese'.

      Lot's of stuff is proven wrong all the time. you accept it, and move on. Meanwhile the fundies are busy trying to insist that enough rain fell to cover the entire earth up to and over the tops of the highest mountains, and then mysteriously vanished.

      It's why science schoolbooks from 25 years ago are obsolete, but Grandpa's King James version of the bible is just as up to date as it never was.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  2. One might call them... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    fauxcells

  3. Old? Old. by youngone · · Score: 2

    Australia has some really old rocks alright. My favourite is this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... Named after some hills in South Australia. Some weird animals there. (If they are even animals. Or plants. Both?).

    1. Re:Old? Old. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Australia has lots of weird animals. Hell, they've got moths down there that are as big as cocker spaniels. Animals that look like Jim Henson rejects. They've got freakin' yowies down there that make Sasquatch look like Pee-Wee Herman. I didn't actually see a yowie, but after I saw something that looked like a three-way cross between a rat, a jackrabbit and Dwayne Johnson, I don't doubt for a second that they exist. I went there a few years ago and visited a huge national park and it was like Land of the Lost.

      I mean, it's a nice place. Nice people. They find out you're from Chicago and you won't have to pay for another drink. Great looking women. Good food. If it wasn't for the annoying accents, you'd think you were somewhere on the West Coast. But the wildlife, man. Way too spooky for me.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    2. Re:Old? Old. by NoMaster · · Score: 3, Funny

      I saw something that looked like a three-way cross between a rat, a jackrabbit and Dwayne Johnson

      So, apart from that, what did you think of Melbourne?

      --
      What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
  4. Re:FIrst post for fossils by pitchpipe · · Score: 5, Funny

    And to think, you're the successful product of 3.5 billion years of evolution. I guess this is proof that not every branch or individual is viable.

    --
    Look where all this talking got us, baby.
  5. Do you think that some distant.... by mark-t · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... future descendant might try and argue, by the same reasoning, that the "people" (as we currently call them) in this time were not really alive either... that all we actually are is a bunch of organic compounds arranged in a pattern that suspiciously behaves like what they consider to be life, but actually isn't.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    1. Re:Do you think that some distant.... by VirginMary · · Score: 3, Interesting

      maybe... just 1% from being the great apes

      If you meant that humans are 1% different from other Great Apes you would be wrong. Humans are classified as Great Apes. If not you'd have some other Great Apes (bonobos and chimps) actually being closer to us than to the rest of the Great Apes. It was only ignorance or possibly human arrogance that in the past led to humans not being included with the other Great Apes.

      --
      When 1person suffers from a delusion,it is called insanity.When many people suffer from a delusion,it is called religion
  6. Waste Dump? by docwatson223 · · Score: 2

    I swear some ancient civilization used Australia as a waste dump and testing grounds for some seriously bad sh** - the frigging Platypus is weird enough but folks forget the damned thing is *poisonous*, too - then add in the rest of the the things that are pretty much post-Apocalypse like the other floral and fauna that are incredibly lethal (e.g., the snakes) and it can make you wonder 'wtf happened here??'

    1. Re:Waste Dump? by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Funny

      I swear some ancient civilization used Australia as a waste dump and testing grounds for some seriously bad sh**

      OK, we confess. It was us.

      Yours faithfully,
          England.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  7. Natural cell-wall precursor? by JohnCharlesMontalban · · Score: 2

    To me, at least, it doesn't sound like they had "nothing to do with" life - I wonder if it could be a precursor to life. If mineral formations were forming "cell-wall-like" structures made of nonmetals, that sounds like it might have been a naturally forming scaffold for the formation of the earliest cell walls. Natural small enclosures with attraction to carbon and nonmetals seems like they'd make a really good substrate for infinite separate runs of the natural experiment leading up to the first replicating molecules.