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It might be a grape size protist. Those were the days...
A single-celled ball about the size of a grape may provide an explanation for one of the mysteries of fossil history.Writing in Current Biology, researchers say the creature leaves tracks on the seabed which mirror fossilised tracks left up to 1.8 billion years ago.
Many palaeontologists believe only multi-celled organisms could have made these tracks.
This has been difficult to confirm as no multi-cellular fossils of such an age have ever been found.
But it is not a grape or even sloce. It is a protist of some sort. News story here, I've not yet seen the published paper (too busy count votes and stuff).
Comments
Grape-sized protist!? Do tell!
Posted by: Monado | November 22, 2008 12:51 AM
How can a single cell be the size of a grape? What's in the membrain? How do the nutrients move around? Does it have a nucleus?
Posted by: Jackal | November 22, 2008 8:29 AM
Beautiful article! Thak you BBC and thank you for the link.
And now, how long will it be for the Creationists to say this disproves evo, and how long before the IDists say this proves design?
Jeez I hate those idiots.
Posted by: J-Dog | November 22, 2008 9:46 AM
I read somewhere that an egg is a single cell, so the largest single cell is an ostrich's egg. After that, a grape-sized protist isn't so hard to swallow!
Posted by: Monado | November 22, 2008 12:30 PM
So, grape sized? pseudopodia? I want to know more. Current Biology wants $30 to read the paper. Sigh.
Posted by: Rick Quarton | November 22, 2008 4:04 PM
Rick: You are inspiring me to go read the paper. I'll do it today and post about it.
Right ... eggs are "large cells" but not really. Its kind of a misnomer.
But one could see how, in a world without grapes living in the grape size-niche, protists could be doing the grape thing. Rolling around being grape-like.
Posted by: Greg Laden | November 22, 2008 6:05 PM