LUCA: Our Last Universal Common Ancestor
- Admin
- May 9
- 1 min read
We started our journey with prokaryote, the earliest form of life on earth. Now scientists are zeroing in on what came before prokaryote: LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor, who their research shows was the joint ancestor of bacteria and archaea (bacteria-like oranisms), who differ from eukaryotes, which includes all plants and animals. New research shows that eukaryotes (us!) emerged later! Whether the bacteria and bacteria-like entities constitute life and where did they come from are matters of intense debate, of course, and you can read about it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/science/last-universal-ancestor.html and review the original research here: https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2016116
Recent Posts
See AllWe start off the book and our story with the sudden explosion of our universe into existence known as the big bang. In the next...
In chapter two we discuss how seemingly unrelated species-ants, frongs, crickets-and firelies have an unusual ability to synchronize...
A new Vox article reports that as the new James Webb Space Telescope allows astronomers to look further and further back in time, almost...
Comments