Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The earliest known life forms on Earth may be as old as 4.1 billion years (or Ga) according to biologically fractionated graphite inside a single zircon grain in the Jack Hills range of Australia. [2] The earliest evidence of life found in a stratigraphic unit, not just a single mineral grain, is the 3.7 Ga metasedimentary rocks containing ...
Microbiology (from Ancient Greek μῑκρος (mīkros) 'small' βίος (bíos) 'life' and -λογία 'study of') is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being of unicellular (single-celled), multicellular (consisting of complex cells), or acellular (lacking cells).
Recently, Forest L Rohwer and colleagues developed a novel statistical test to examine the potential for the hologenome theory of evolution in coral species. [51] They found that coral species do not inherit microbial communities, and are instead colonized by a core group of microbes that associate with a diversity of species.
SAR or Harosa is a highly diverse clade of eukaryotes, often considered a supergroup, [2] that includes stramenopiles (heterokonts), alveolates, and rhizarians. [3] [4] [5] It is a node-based taxon, including all descendants of the three groups' last common ancestor, [6] and comprises most of the now-rejected Chromalveolata. [2]
The most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of bacteria and archaea was probably a hyperthermophile that lived about 2.5 billion–3.2 billion years ago. [16] [17] [18] The earliest life on land may have been bacteria some 3.22 billion years ago. [19] Bacteria were also involved in the second great evolutionary divergence, that of the archaea and ...
Microbial ecology (or environmental microbiology) is the ecology of microorganisms: their relationship with one another and with their environment. It concerns the three major domains of life—Eukaryota, Archaea, and Bacteria—as well as viruses. [2] This relationship is often mediated by secondary metabolites produced by microorganisms.
Life originated as marine single-celled prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) and later evolved into more complex eukaryotes. Eukaryotes are the more developed life forms known as plants, animals, fungi and protists. Protists are the eukaryotes that cannot be classified as plants, fungi or animals. They are mostly single-celled and microscopic.
Homochirality is an obvious characteristic of life on Earth, yet extraterrestrial samples contain largely racemic compounds. [7] It is not known whether homochirality existed before life, whether the building blocks of life must have this particular chirality, or whether life must be homochiral at all.