The unusual wall-less cells can create structures (main image) similar to those found in 3.4 billion-year-old rocks from South Africa’s Back Reef (inset)
Dheeraj Kanaparti et al. (2024); Tice et al. (2009)
Earth’s oldest rocks contain mysterious fossil cells that look nothing like living ones today, leaving biologists puzzled as to how they evolved. Now experiments suggest that the fossils may represent primitive cells that lacked full control over their shape, a precursor to the modern cells we see today.
Sedimentary rocks formed up to 3.8 billion years ago – …
