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Scientists Confirm There Was Life On Earth 3.5 Billion Years Ago (qz.com)
Paleobiologists have confirmed today that life forms existed some 3.5 billion years ago. The new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses the latest techniques to date the most aged remains available. Quartz reports: The research, led by paleobiologist William Schopf of the University of California-Los Angeles and geoscientist John Valley of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been in the works for what seems a long time to most, but which the academics know is merely a blink of the eye in terms of life on Earth. The specimens in question, mostly now-extinct bacteria and microbes, were found in 1982 at the Apex Chert, a rock formation in Western Australia, in a piece of rock. In 1993, based on radiometric analyses of the rock, and the shape of fossils, Schopf dated them as biological beings that existed 3.45 billion years ago. The rock held the earliest direct evidence of life, Schopf thought, and inferred from it that creatures existed over a billion years earlier than anyone previously believed. But some scientists argued that this claim was too speculative and that the microfossils, invisible to the naked eye, were really just weirdly-shaped bits of rock, strange minerals that only seem to contain biological specimens but do not.
Since then, technology has improved and Schopf and Valley teamed up to devise a new way to analyze the rock specimen, which now lives in the London Museum of Natural History. Valley spent 10 years developing a method to analyze the individual species that are shaped like tiny cylinders and filaments. Any type of organic substance (including both rock and microbe) contains a characteristic mix of carbon isotopes. Using a secondary ion mass spectrometer (a very rare tool, one of which is housed at the University of Wisconsin), the scientists were able to separate the carbon in each fossil into isotopes. That way, they could measure the carbon-isotope makeup of each fossil, and compare those to fossil-less rocks from the same era. [...] After analyzing the microfossils individually, they identified five species, concluding that two were photosynthesizers, two were methane-consuming organisms, and one produced methane.
Since then, technology has improved and Schopf and Valley teamed up to devise a new way to analyze the rock specimen, which now lives in the London Museum of Natural History. Valley spent 10 years developing a method to analyze the individual species that are shaped like tiny cylinders and filaments. Any type of organic substance (including both rock and microbe) contains a characteristic mix of carbon isotopes. Using a secondary ion mass spectrometer (a very rare tool, one of which is housed at the University of Wisconsin), the scientists were able to separate the carbon in each fossil into isotopes. That way, they could measure the carbon-isotope makeup of each fossil, and compare those to fossil-less rocks from the same era. [...] After analyzing the microfossils individually, they identified five species, concluding that two were photosynthesizers, two were methane-consuming organisms, and one produced methane.
And 3.5 billion years later life spends its days on Slashdot. Progress?
nuf sed
Table-ized A.I.
Back in my day we had to force ourselves to commit mitosis and grow flagellum to troll. It was painful; be grateful.
Table-ized A.I.
the eath is only 6000 years old .
Precambrian life forms are precambrian. Tekeli-li!
That means it only took life 1 billion years to evolve (shorter if you consider the early earth was inhospitable). That means it is really easy for life to evolve or strong support for pan-spermia ;that life was seeded from outside the solar system.
The biggest joke here is that most of those you claim "adapted" don't even think evolution is real and instead prefer to believe that their imaginary friend poofed everything into existence with magic.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You're off by about a factor of a million, but otherwise surprisingly accurate.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Evolution is about adaptation to a changing environment.
"Progress" has no part in any of it - what does that word even mean? That word implies a goal (how else can you make progress if not towards some goal).
Should've looked closer, there's a few senators old enough that there's some mold growing on them.
INTELLIGENT life, on the other hand, ...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Silence is a state of mime.
It has been generally accepted that there was life at 3.45Gya since 2013.
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20131113/DAA1VSC01.html
You old bastard.
At the end of all your lives, you will not be able to doubt that there is a God and that you will forever be craving water and a cooler climate.
Where they there?
Yeah well the guy always posts AC so he's asking for some saddo to come along and impersonate him. On slashdot, that's fucking inevitable.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
You aren't APK. But you are an even sadder cunt than him. Imagine that.
The rule of thumb on slashdot appears to be:
Do I like this?
If the answer is yes, it is true. It's real.
If the answer is no, then it is false. It isn't real.
So the christian ones. Plenty of them. They don't like evolution, so it isn't real. Libertarian types who don't like feeling guilty about flying or running AC all summer - they don't like the idea of climate change. So that's bullshit too.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
He'll be pardoned by his co-conspirator. But HEY LOOK A TRANSSEXUAL TOILET GUYS ooooooooooo GAYS IN THE MILITARY BUILD A WALL HAHAHA
playing guitar for the Rolling Stones!
Since Rock can become molten, but stay it's own substance, the radioactive dataing doesn't prove anything about the age of the fossil, especially since huge assumptions are made on how much of a particular radioactive substance there must've been to begin with. And certainly assumptions are made on how the fossils are formed. Just proving a few ways of how fossils can be formed does not mean that is how all fossils are formed. Radioactive dating is more akin to statistics which are know to be able to be manipulated, than scientific..
I do think the data points to climate change being real, I still run the AC all Summer. I just don't give a fuck about whether the planet is still hospitable to human life after I'm gone.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, of course, none of those paleobiologists, geologists, biologists and other scientists, with their years of studies, followed by years of experience, could have possibly considered all the possibilities and taken into account the characteristics and possible limitations of their dating techniques.
Not like some random internet anonymous expert who's so much more experienced and knowledgeable.
Seriously, you must be very naive to think that your smokescreen of pseudo-scientific bullshit, which in fact only highlights your ignorance, could hide the fact that you're just a clueless creationist retard.
Reading your post was just like reading the falacious crap of some random flat-earther, for fuck's sake. I bet you voted for Trump, to.
Sorry space cadet, there is no solar system.
Check out the winter sun while you're thinking about that.
It's a being, but not as we know it.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Something tells me that you're a fan of authority...
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
And something tells me that you see in me exactly what you want to see. By your tone, you're obviously someone who systematically rejects anything that's even remotely related to authority, regardless if it could be good or bad. And the fact that you saw a link with authority in a post that's completely unrelated to it tells me that, frankly, you must be somehow obsessed with the concept of authority in your daily life.
See ? I can play armschair psychologist too.
I agree science must be challenged, but with valid logically sound hypothesis, not pseudo-intellectual bullshit like what the OP posted. As I said, he sounded exactly like one of those flat-earth fucktards.
Incase you haven't noticed, there's a concerted, delibarate, worldwide war against science. Scientists' integrity is being deliberately attacked, a delibarate gaslighting campain is being run against the scientific method itself. This is more than a war against science, it's a war against civilization itself, against reason, logic, rationality and knowledge over obscurantism, superstition, barbarism and savagery.
Choose your side.
After analyzing the microfossils individually, they identified five species, concluding that two were photosynthesizers, two were methane-consuming organisms, and one produced methane.
So two of them were conspiring to kill the other three. It took them a billion years, but they finally pulled it off.
I don't know which is more stupid - Believing in a supreme being that created absolutely everything or that somehow you can shake a bunch of DNA for billions of years and end up with conciousness. There is a very, very *very* low probability of either happening. At least the "God" theory admits that it is a matter of belief/faith.
You are so awesome and cool. Such a tough guy rebel, or maybe a sociopath?
All of Christian theology hangs on the fall of Eve and Adam and the world with it. Without this literal event nothing about New Testament theology makes any sense. That is why Creationism is very important. Jesus believed in the actual literal Genesis story and built his theology upon it. I personally don't understand how a Christian cannot believe in the literal Adam and Eve story and have a coherent belief .
(Disclaimer I don't believe it but I understand why they fight)
If you read the paper that is what makes these rock special is that they haven't metamorphosed.
This variant developed into politicians.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
And how do you think we got here? Where did the elements and energy in our universe come from? 0 + 0 = 0, that's a mathematical certainty. You start from nothing, you get nothing no matter how much time goes by. So clearly, somewhere somehow, we are dependent on something outside our universe for our existence. Or, as you say, did all that "stuff" just magically "poof" into existence?
Maybe you should think hard about the origins of life before attempting to mock others for their belief in a supreme being.
It's fucking hot. I whine and melt above 30*C. Some fuckers live in places hotter than that for for more than just a few days a summer for some dumb fucking reason.
None of what you said made any sense, so I'll continue to ignore your nonsense, mmmkay?
-1? I legit lol.
While it is hard to wrap our minds around as creatures of our seemingly orderly cosmos, if there truly is nothing at all, then there are no laws at all (e.g. no conservation of matter and energy, no cause and effect), and so there is nothing to prevent anything from suddenly popping into existence (along with whatever new laws of physics).
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Against!
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
That's not entirely true. There are many Christians unopposed to the concept of evolution. It's the origin of the universe and self-consciousness that is contested having come not from "magic", but from a form of life unlike anything we currently know or understand (scientifically speaking) and in a non-corporeal form.
0 + 0 = 0, that's a mathematical certainty.
-100+100 = 0 is a mathematical certainty too.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it