Paleontology|The estimate was premature by hundreds of millions of years.
The summary is made by artificial intelligence and checked by a human.
The common stock form of modern life may be older than previously thought.
It was thought to have lived as early as 4.2 billion years ago, when the Earth was very young.
The strain had genes that protected it from the Sun’s UV radiation.
It could live on the surface of the ocean.
The current one the common strain of life may be older than previously believed, says a new international research.
It is known that the early organisms that populated the earth were single-celled. Also swimming in the crowd was the ancestor of all living things, whose heirs we humans are, but also, for example, coliform bacteria, flies and birch trees.
The kinship relationships between living things are evident from the genetic material of the organisms. The structure and function of DNA are the same in all organisms. This refers to one common stem form named luca.
It comes from the words last universal common ancestor i.e. the last common ancestor.
Lucan research is tricky, as scientists have to find ways to see billions of years back.
In general, attempts have been made to estimate Luca’s age using fossil data. Now, a group consisting of researchers from universities in several different countries tried a different approach and combined different methods to outline the family tree of life.
In addition to fossil data, the group used a method called the molecular clock. With it, you can trace the descent of organisms from previous species with the help of changes that occurred in the inheritance of organisms.
When evaluating the descent history, the researchers also took into account horizontal gene transfer, i.e. the fact that a single-celled organism can receive genes from other organisms living at the same time.
Researchers dated Luca’s origin much earlier than previously thought.
According to a new estimate, Luca would have lived no less than 4.2 billion years ago. At that time, the Earth was quite young, as the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old.
“The evolution of life may be simpler than previously thought because it happened so early,” says Philip Donoghue from the University of Bristol for New Scientist magazine.
In the earlier ones studies have assumed that a common ancestor could not have lived before the most violent period in Earth’s history.
About 3.8 billion years ago, the young solar system was pelted with countless asteroids that recklessly crashed into young planets.
The Earth also had its share of bombardment, and many scientists have assumed that life could not have survived this shock.
Developed by the term Luca Patrick Forterre The Pasteur Institute in Paris is not convinced by the new theory about Luca’s age.
“The claim that Luca lived before the late asteroid bombardment 3.9 billion years ago is unrealistic to me,” he tells New Scientist.
Forterre however, agrees with the research team that Luca was not alone in the early world. Probably, the stem organism was part of an ecosystem consisting of primitive unicellular organisms.
According to the study, Luca’s genome contained genes related to protection from the Sun’s UV radiation, which suggests that the organism could have lived on the surface of the ocean.
Other genes, on the other hand, support the idea presented in other studies that Luca used hydrogen for food. In addition, the progenitor had a possibly primitive protection mechanism developed to fight viruses.
The research was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution..