Methane-belching bugs inspire a new theory of the origin of life on Earth
...acetate-producing species appears to be the direct descendant of one of the earliest true microbes. "We know that this bug is very ancient indeed," Ferry told the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center's annual meeting earlier this week. "There is strong phylogenetic evidence that acetate kinase is a very anci......he east coast of South Africa. The coelacanth is a descendant of the ancient marine organism that gave rise to the terrestrial vertebrates more than 360 million years ago. Humans are therefore separated from the coelacanth by hundreds of millions of years of evolution, yet the two organisms still share critical...