[HN Gopher] New vestiges of the first life on Earth discovered
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       New vestiges of the first life on Earth discovered
        
       Author : wglb
       Score  : 63 points
       Date   : 2024-06-04 01:56 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (phys.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
        
       | gtsnexp wrote:
       | Vahrenkamp's discovery of living stromatolites on Sheybarah
       | Island is a big deal for anyone interested in ancient life. It's
       | amazing to see how these organisms, which were some of the first
       | to oxygenate our planet, are still around in extreme
       | environments. This find could teach us much about how life began
       | and survived on Earth. Plus, the idea of growing stromatolites in
       | an aquarium and studying them up close is pretty exciting.I
       | wonder what it would take to commercialize these organisms to the
       | general public.
        
         | ssklash wrote:
         | Sort of like pre-historic Sea Monkeys. I think that would be
         | super cool to be able to grow at home.
        
         | kstrauser wrote:
         | How confident are we that these aren't new organisms that arose
         | from the same mechanisms that birthed the ancient ones? That
         | is, are we sure these don't resemble the first kinds of life
         | because they were formed recently themselves?
        
       | w10-1 wrote:
       | It sounds like there's a many-thousand-square-km area to search
       | for 15-cm patches, which would be difficult to do for humans (in
       | extreme heat).
       | 
       | But a well-designed drone trained to visually recognize
       | candidates would be a great service, and would minimize
       | environmental disruption. Some enterprising (resume-builder)
       | could directly contact the researcher in question...
        
       | thangalin wrote:
       | My coffee table photobook may be of interest for anyone wanting a
       | brief introduction to the advent of life on Earth.
       | 
       | * https://impacts.to/downloads/lowres/impacts.pdf
       | 
       | * https://impacts.to/
       | 
       | There's a timeline showing approximately when stromatolites make
       | an appearance, relative to the start of the Universe.
        
         | closewith wrote:
         | Looks great. BTW the price is significantly higher when I click
         | through to buy than it is on your site.
        
           | thangalin wrote:
           | Thanks for letting me know. It looks like Blurb upped their
           | prices.
        
         | wesammikhail wrote:
         | That is one hell of a beautiful PDF. Amazing work!
        
       | aaroninsf wrote:
       | Panspermia has entered the chat!
       | https://earthsky.org/space/perseverance-stromatolites-microb...
        
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       (page generated 2024-06-05 23:01 UTC)