Carlos Pedrós-Alió

Carlos Pedrós-Alió

Carlos Pedrós-Alió
Cargo

Co-director of the Microbiome Analysis Laboratory and Research Professor

Reactions: New fossils from eukaryotes found in millions-of-years-old rocks

An international team has discovered a new type of molecular fossil in sedimentary rocks from the mid-Proterozoic - which spans from 2.5 billion to 542 million years ago. Protosteroids, a type of lipids found in abundance in those rocks, indicate that eukaryotes were a dominant life form in aquatic environments between 1.6 billion and 800 million years ago, the authors explain in Nature. The finding would confirm the theory of Nobel laureate Konrad Bloch, who predicted the existence of these primordial molecules. 

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