PALEONTOLOGY: Enhanced: A New Molecular Window on Early Life Andrew H. Knoll In recent years, the boundary between the Archean and the Proterozoic--2500 million years ago--has been the boundary between a relatively well-studied biology preserved in fossils and a shadowland for paleobiological evidence for life on Earth. Brocks et al. now extend the chemical evidence for biomolecules from the previous 1700 million years to 2700 million years, by identifying biomarkers characteristic for cyanobacteria and eukaryotes in Archean rocks from rocks from Western Australia. The results show that a key attribute of eukaryotic physiology had already evolved 2700 million years ago. The author is at the Botanical Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. E-mail: aknoll@oeb.harvard.edu

Text iGenetics by Peter J. Russell

This web site is provided for instruction in Botany and Zoology 342

by Kenneth G. Wilson,
Professor of Botany
Miami University
wilsonkg@muohio.edu