New Method to Determine the Beginnings of Life.
Fossils are rare in old rocks and old rocks are also rare, so dating the beginning of life by looking in old rocks is not easy. Few contain any biological remains and anything found is difficult to identify and usually of little use.
In THIS ARTICLE, written by a Bristol PhD student, a different approach is used.
The article describes using the genetic data we have for present day organisms and applying a molecular clock to decipher their history.
I will not pretend that I understand the technique but the article is well worth reading - and the author thinks life started about 3.9 billion years ago before the late heavy bombardment!
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