Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Discover the World's Oldest Colors (phys.org)
1.1 billion-year-old bright pink pigments extracted from rocks deep beneath the Sahara desert in Africa are the oldest colors on record. They were discovered by scientists from The Australian National University (ANU), with support from Geoscience Australia and researchers in the United States and Japan. Phys.Org reports: Dr. Nur Gueneli from ANU said the pigments taken from marine black shales of the Taoudeni Basin in Mauritania, West Africa, were more than half a billion years older than previous pigment discoveries. The fossils range from blood red to deep purple in their concentrated form, and bright pink when diluted. The researchers crushed the billion-year-old rocks to powder, before extracting and analyzing molecules of ancient organisms from them.
"The precise analysis of the ancient pigments confirmed that tiny cyanobacteria dominated the base of the food chain in the oceans a billion years ago, which helps to explain why animals did not exist at the time," Dr. Gueneli said. Senior lead researcher Associate Professor Jochen Brocks from ANU said that the emergence of large, active organisms was likely to have been restrained by a limited supply of larger food particles, such as algae. "Algae, although still microscopic, are a thousand times larger in volume than cyanobacteria, and are a much richer food source," said. The study has been published in the journal PNAS.
"The precise analysis of the ancient pigments confirmed that tiny cyanobacteria dominated the base of the food chain in the oceans a billion years ago, which helps to explain why animals did not exist at the time," Dr. Gueneli said. Senior lead researcher Associate Professor Jochen Brocks from ANU said that the emergence of large, active organisms was likely to have been restrained by a limited supply of larger food particles, such as algae. "Algae, although still microscopic, are a thousand times larger in volume than cyanobacteria, and are a much richer food source," said. The study has been published in the journal PNAS.
It makes it seem like colors didn't exist before a certain period of time.
What about the Frumious bandersnatch that were feeding on that cyanobacteria?
Probably more correct to say "oldest rock color". Colors are meta data. It'd be like saying "We discovered gravity is the oldest force in the universe". The statement is nonsense.
We'll make great pets
Looks like early Slashdot was OMG PONIES!!!
That the first plants were purple when they were utilizing a different wavelength of light.
I get that people use simple language to get their point across, but saying color here is just confusing.
Just call it oldest pigment, oldest paint, oldest man made pigment, or whatever.
It's amazing how fashion is constantly changing.
APK, are you reading this? I come in peace and I have potentially useful information for you. Please answer this post and I'll reply with the information. Have a good day, sir.
You freaks, color is a function of the mind, not a relic that one can find! So there were no colors until the first eye evolved. Even then (and even today) each species perceives lightwaves in its own way. We can only speak of colors as we know them in relation to humans, and still we donâ(TM)t know if two humans perceive colore the same way. Lightwaves and matter have always existed so this article is pointless.
I think we can accept part of the linked article - that pigments have been identified in very old rocks.
However, the phys.org piece then seems to claim that this is somehow "pigmentation", inferring that this is an aesthetic feature of the life form at the time. There is no suggestion that these life forms had developed organs capable of what we recognise today as "sight".
The simple fact is that chemicals generate colours. Copper sulphate solution? It's a cyan-blue. Potassium Permanganate solution? Tha's purple. But copper sulphate isn't blue for aesthetic reasons, it's blue because of the way that light interacts with the molecular structure of the compound. It is a direct result of the physical properties of the compound in question.
Treating this as though it were somehow a remarkable discovery is complete nonsense. We know that chemical reactions - inorganic as well as organic - produce compounds of given colours and pigments. I can put chunks of metallic copper in to sulphuric acid and get blue copper sulphate, but that isn't some pigment created by a life form. That's just chemistry.
In other words, what this article is establishing is not some aesthetic pigment produced by an ancient life form. It is, instead, identifying a potential range of chemical processes that the life forms could have used as part of their metabolism. Well, having a metabolism is one of the identifiable features of "life". It doesn't imply that the "colours" that result come from anything beyond that basic chemistry.
Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.
Am I the only one who thinks the color on the photo is not "bright pink" at all? Rose petals are bright pink, this stuff is more bronze or something. I hate when science is disappointing Anyway I wish the article also explained what is considered a "pigment" in this research because (1) we can't confirm this was used as one and (2) everything is colorful and could be used as a pigment. Remember the paintings made with blood : hemoglobin as a red pigment.
It's completely old. It's like, how much further back can you go? The answer is none - none more back
Probably more correct to say "oldest rock color".
No, the oldest confirmed rock on Earth at 4.4 billion years old is a nice blue zircon.
However, the oldest "colour" in the Universe though is technically the Cosmic microwave background. Some of those photons used to be in the visible spectrum but are so old, dating from 300k years after the Big Bang, that the expansion of the universe stretched them into the microwave region. So, if anything, the oldest colour is what we now perceive as the black between the stars and galaxies.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Or better yet, humans? Color interpretation is an inate ability of most living things.
I have an orange shag carpet that I'm sure is in the running for oldest.
Have gnu, will travel.
The real claim is that a relatively simple chemical can be a "fossil" from so far back. This relies on so many assumptions about what's happened in a billion years that it is truly unfunny.
My bet is on the null hypothesis: the isotopic offset is not derived from the prevalence of cyanobacteria.
"[found] porphyrins the molecular fossils of chlorophylls, from 1,100-million-year-old marine black shales of the Taoudeni Basin (Mauritania), 600 million years older than previous findings. The porphyrin nitrogen isotopes (15Npor = 5.6–10.2) are heavier than in younger sedimentary sequences, and the isotopic offset between sedimentary bulk nitrogen and porphyrins (por = 5.1 to 0.5) points to cyanobacteria as dominant primary producers"
The headline and article writer(s) for Phys.org is/are using the term "color" to mean pigment. The should have used "pigment" like the actual researchers do. The summary author here was just copying the Phys.org headline (mis)usage.
If they wanted to stay with "color" they should have used a compound term like "organic color", "biogenic color", or some-such.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Have you ever looked at cyanobacteria? I mean, really looked at cyanobacteria?
It's totally awesome dude! There are colors!
Colour/color is a measurement not a thing with age.