Evolution upset: Oxygen-making microbes came last, not first

spaceref.com ^ | 25 Oct 02 | Geological Society of America

[RightWhale]

Evolution upset: Oxygen-making microbes came last, not first

Get ready to rewrite those biology textbooks - again. Although the "lowly" blue-green algae, or Cyanobacteria, have long been credited as one of Earth's earliest life forms and the source of the oxygen in the early Earth's atmosphere, they might be neither.

By creating a new genetic family tree of the world's most primitive bacteria and comparing it to the geochemistry of ancient iron and sulfur deposits, Carrine Blank of Washington University has found evidence that instead of Cyanobacteria being very ancient, they may have appeared much later, perhaps as much as a billion years later, than previously assumed. Blank will present the results of her research at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver on Tuesday, Oct. 29.

"What paleontologists and geologists have had to do is reconstruct evolutionary events because biologists haven't had a very good evolutionary tree of bacteria," says Blank. To get a better family tree, Blank took advantage of growing genome archives and studied 38 genes in the whole gene sequences of 53 species of extant bacteria, including Cyanobacteria. By mapping out the rates of change in the slowest-changing genes, Blank was able to generate a bacterial evolutionary history that shows cyanobacteria branching off last.

If correct, Blank's tree essentially flip-flops the traditional order in which bacteria appeared on the scene.

Traditionally, it has been thought that Cyanobacteria came on stage very early in Earth's history, perhaps at least 3.5 billion years ago. They produced the first abundant oxygen molecules. All that oxygen bound to the abundant free iron in the oceans and rained to the seafloor ñ creating the economically important banded iron formations. The advent of atmospheric oxygen also caused sulfide minerals on land to break down into sulfates and wash into the oceans ñ where sulfur-loving bacteria gobbled them up. The earliest geological evidence for sulfur bacteria is changes in sulfur isotopes ñ indicating organisms are preferentially using isotopes of the element ñ that began about 2.4 billion years ago. This was followed by a sudden rise in oxygen in the atmosphere at about 2.2 or 2.3 billion years ago.

"The (traditional) model was that the cyanobacteria were present all the time," says Blank. Reasonable as all this sounds, it doesn't match the genetic evolutionary tree, she says.

In Blank's version of the story, the sulfur-loving bacteria came on the scene at about 2.4 billion years ago, and the Cyanobacteria came along at least 100 million years later, she says. Because banded iron formations were formed much earlier than these dates, Cyanobacteria are not likely to have led to their creation, she explains.

Blank's model could explain the puzzling lack of actual cyanobacteria fossils in the earliest days of the banded iron formations. It could also resolve an apparent contradiction regarding the biochemistry of Cyanobacteria, says Blank. The contradiction is that cyanobacteria have a surprisingly advanced biochemistry that was the product of a long evolutionary history. In other words, cyanobacteria must have evolved from more primitive photosynthetic bacteria.

If Blank is correct, her revised evolutionary history of the bacteria raises a difficult question: If cyanobacteria came later, where did the Earth's earliest oxidants come from which produced banded iron formations? There are many competing theories on this matter, Blank says. Among them are hypotheses that call on inorganic reactions in the oceans and the air to release limited amounts of oxidants. There is even the possibility that there was also an early and so-far undiscovered iron oxidizing microbe that may have produced banded iron formations as a result of their metabolism, Blank says.

Blank's cyanobacteria research was conducted as part of her recent doctoral thesis at the University of California at Berkeley. Her bacterial phylogeny research is currently under review for publication in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. Blank is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Geobiology in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

[RightWhale]

Thought I might test the robustness of the database. This is in Culture because it is about bacteria. Besides that, the C/R debate might be a little sparse today, so some actual science might get through.

[Zon]

Get ready to rewrite those biology textbooks - again.

Evolution vs. Creation thread #2,558,946,287

[AndrewC]

Blast the slow response

Alma Mater BTTT

[AndrewC]

Pong for acidophilus

[CyberCowboy777]

Marker

[CyberCowboy777]

Marker

[RobRoy]

>>...What paleontologists and geologists have had to do is reconstruct evolutionary events...<<

Oh no. Not AGAIN!

[whattajoke]

I am anxiously awaiting the first creationist to somehow read this as a refutation of evolution. It will be shocking how they will miss the casual mentioning of billion year time frames and the evolution based science upon which this discovery is based upon.

Just wondering, does this mean cyanobacteria goes to heaven? Or that god actually likes other bacteria better? Pardon my ignorance, as I skipped that week at sunday school.

[Raymond Hendrix]

Science does not change the minds of fanatics. There is always another explanation coming for any new discovery. The Miller experiments used to "prove" abiogenesis. When the early atmosphere was found not likely to be as he supposed then the fanatics supposed something else while still clinging to the previous disproved supposition. A little more or less oxygen is a small problem for those who will reject the idea of God at any cost. They can suppose that oxygen came from somewhere else or ignore the implications of the lack of it. The important thing is to keep pretending that their speculation is science.

The Blind Atheist

[DallasMike]

I am anxiously awaiting the first creationist to somehow read this as a refutation of evolution. It will be shocking how they will miss the casual mentioning of billion year time frames and the evolution based science upon which this discovery is based upon.

Not really -- most creationists are quite comfortable with billion year time frames. However, many of us with science training (my degrees are in chemistry and chemical engineering) find the evolutionary theory of the week about as compelling as the notion that the earth was created 6,000 years ago. It's not any imagined conflict with religion that bothers me (I see no conflict) but rather the shaky science.

[SpaceBar]

I was under the impression that we lived in a giant earth fart. Since the original primordial atmosphere was stripped away when the Sun went into the T-Tauri stage, all current atmospheric gases were derived from volcanic outgassing and have been modified by biological activity. The notion that thiobacilli predate algae makes sense since black smokers were a plentiful and uncontested food source billions of years ago.

[AndrewC]

I am anxiously awaiting the first creationist to somehow read this as a refutation of evolution.

Of course we know that it cannot be a refutation of Darwininian evolution. That is due to the just-so nature of Darwininianism. It is not falsifiable, as everything is proof of Darwininian evolution.

[DallasMike]

Of course we know that it cannot be a refutation of Darwininian evolution. That is due to the just-so nature of Darwininianism. It is not falsifiable, as everything is proof of Darwininian evolution.

My vote for quote of the week!

[Looking for Diogenes]

It's not any imagined conflict with religion that bothers me (I see no conflict) but rather the shaky science.

Which aspect of this finding is shaky?

[Looking for Diogenes]

It's not any imagined conflict with religion that bothers me (I see no conflict) but rather the shaky science.

Which aspect of this finding is shaky?

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Just wondering, does this mean cyanobacteria goes to heaven?

Yes, they go to cyanobacteria heaven, just down the road from hog, Rock and Roll and seventh heaven.

[jimtorr]

Well, guess again. Argumentative folks have hijacked your science thread anyway.

Personally speaking, from a layman's point of view, I don't like all the guesswork of the gene-mutation theories.

Perhaps you've seen the Gary Larson "Farside" cartoon, where a scientist has drawn this incredibly complex formula on the blackboard. At the bottom of the formula, he's written, "and then a miracle happens,....." That's what I think of the notion that mutations happen at some constant rate.

[Looking for Diogenes]

It's not any imagined conflict with religion that bothers me (I see no conflict) but rather the shaky science.

What part about this finding is shaky?

[Traction]

Where has this lady been? I learned this thirty years ago studying ocean engineering (no I don't practice in that field). The ocean bio classes of the 70s had it figured out that the sulfer based life forms dominated for a very long time before the blue-greens came around. There is nothing new in her so called discovery.

[Aracelis]

Self-correcting-science ping (but I don't know why I bother, given some obtuse and non-self-correcting posters).

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Just wondering, does this mean cyanobacteria goes to heaven?

Yea, they go to cyanobacteria heaven, just dowh the road from hog, Rock and Roll, and seventh heaven.

[Aracelis]

Self-correcting-science ping (but I don't know why I bother, given some obtuse and non-self-correcting posters).

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Hmm, interesting.

[Nebullis]

The only reason Cyanobacteria were thought to be the first bacteria is because a researcher by the name of J. William Schopf claimed to have found some in a 3.5-3.8 billion year old deposit. Schopf has retracted that finding based on various pieces of conflicting evidence by other researchers. (There are a lot of texts and websites which have not yet been updated.) The next most recent actual find is about a billion years younger. So, we really don't know what the earliest bacterium is.

Based on DNA analysis, Blank, apparently, has a suggestion. The upset is not by Blank. The upset is by Schopf.

[AndrewC]

BTTT

[AndrewC]

A shot in the dark

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[Old Professer]

I am anxiously awaiting the first creationist to somehow read this as a refutation of evolution. It will be shocking how they will miss the casual mentioning of billion year time frames and the evolution based science upon which this discovery is based upon.

Just wondering, does this mean cyanobacteria goes to heaven? Or that god actually likes other bacteria better? Pardon my ignorance, as I skipped that week at sunday school.

For your ignorance you will likely be pardoned, but for your lack of manners, I'm afraid you will be treated less civily.

[Old Professer]

You seem to be an unmannerly sort.

[marktwain]

Of course we know that it cannot be a refutation of Darwininian evolution. That is due to the just-so nature of Darwininianism. It is not falsifiable, as everything is proof of Darwininian evolution.

Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain to us how creationism is falsifiable. I would posit that you could replace Darwininan evolution with creationism in the above three sentences, and they would be true statements.

[Looking for Diogenes]

It's not any imagined conflict with religion that bothers me (I see no conflict) but rather the shaky science.

What is shaky about this finding? It matches the mineral evidence better than the prior theory.

[Nebullis]

Bill Schopf retracted his 3.5 bya cyanobacteria "find" over a year ago. The next oldest bacterial fossil is about a billion years younger. So now we don't know what the oldest bacterium was. That was a bit of an upset.

Mind you, the creationist criterion for an upset is subjective. Rest assured that Blank's suggestion for what the oldest bacterium might be, based on phylogeny, is nothing like a human.

[jimtorr]

Well, guess again. Argumentative folks have hijacked your science thread anyway.

Personally speaking, from a layman's point of view, I don't like all the guesswork of the gene-mutation theories.

Perhaps you've seen the Gary Larson "Farside" cartoon, where a scientist has drawn this incredibly complex formula on the blackboard. At the bottom of the formula, he's written, "and then a miracle happens,....." That's what I think of the notion that mutations happen at some constant rate.

[keithtoo]

OK fellow Evolutionists, now we go to plan B, make that plan C.............make that plan AAAA- Rev 1.0..........make that plan CCCC-AABB - Rev 125.88, subsection 892a..............

Dont worry Evo's, we have an unlimited number of revisions and revisions of revisions.

[keithtoo]

OK fellow Evolutionists, now we go to plan B, make that plan C.............make that plan AAAA- Rev 1.0..........make that plan CCCC-AABB - Rev 125.88, subsection 892a..............

Dont worry Evo's, we have an unlimited number of revisions and revisions of revisions.

[buffyt]

In the beginning, God....

"nuff said!

[scripter]

Earlier this week it was realized birds didn't come from dinosaurs and now this. The theory continues to crumble right before our very eyes.

[balrog666]

It's a hypothesis based on analysis, not a fact. The idea that the evolutionary state of the Earth 3.5 billion years ago is cast in stone is ludicrous, so while it's interesting, and may even be true, it changes nothing in later theory.

[Kevin Curry]

I am anxiously awaiting . . .

Why are you anxious? Are you worried?

The time needed for simple molecules to randomly combine to form even the simplest life protein exceeds the estimated age of the universe by several orders of magnitude. Evolutionists understand and can explain the origin of life to about the same degree that a cat might understand and explain the technology behind the image on a television screen.

[VadeRetro]

Another one redrawing the base of the tree. She'll have to fight it out with Carl Woese, summarized nicely on FR by donh sometime back. A point from there seems relevant.

Most interestingly, as we have previously alluded to in our discussion, that some of the Eubacteria are, by DNA mutation distance, older than some of the Archaebacteria. So old, in fact, as to raise a question, since cyanobacteria are, now at 3.5 billion years, the fact that thermatoga predate them substantially is, to say the least, interesting.

Here's a tree that raises the question above.

Since that was written, the 3.5 billion year old cyanobacteria have been called into serious question as geological artifacts, not fossil cells. Thus, 1) the primacy of cyanobacteria has been questioned before, and 2) they may have already been moved later in many people's minds.

[MsLady]

Amen to that brother!!!!

[VadeRetro]

The only reason Cyanobacteria were thought to be the first bacteria is because a researcher by the name of J. William Schopf claimed to have found some in a 3.5-3.8 billion year old deposit. Schopf has retracted that finding based on various pieces of conflicting evidence by other researchers. (There are a lot of texts and websites which have not yet been updated.)

Didn't see your post before I made a similar comment later. But that's not surprising since I didn't see my comment for 10 minutes after I posted it.

[Nebullis]

But that's not surprising since I didn't see my comment for 10 minutes after I posted it.

I ended up posting two comments and thought both were lost. But there they are. I don't want to think about what was done to them in the interim.

[VadeRetro]

It's a hypothesis based on analysis, not a fact.

Note Nebullis's #24 and my #40. This is not earthshaking that I can see.

[VadeRetro]

It's been years, but we've seen it before. Reply-queue backlog.

[ALS]

Evolutionists: "We changed our mind... AGAIN." ping

[scripter]

Evolutionists: "We changed our mind... AGAIN." ping

Hey ALS. Good to hear from you.

[AndrewC]

Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain to us how creationism is falsifiable.

It is not "creationism" that has been included in school cirricula as something that is scientific. It is incumbent on Darwininianism to be falsifiable, which it isn't. Every Darwininian purports that it is, however, things like these show that it really isn't.

[bluecollarman]

"Just wondering, does this mean cyanobacteria goes to heaven"  

Since I am not as smart as any of you guys, I beg your indulgence.  

I believe God created everything in 7 days (including the physics of time and light.) The more I learn of science, genomes, and computer codes  the more firm my belief becomes. I am a simple man. 

Evolutionist seem to be hung up on the concept of time. As I understand time, it is not fixed, it is relative. If it is relative it can  be bent, shaped, accelerated,  slowed.... you get my point. 

Correct me if I am wrong but don't we both believe the following? There is a Universe. This Universe has substance, mass, matter, anti-matter, history, physical laws etc.  We only differ in the manner it came to be.

You believe "Something" other than God created it. "Something" that you can not comprehend or explain in a rational manner. This "Something formed itself and then formed the first particle of all particles. The "Mother of All Particles" if you will. Which in some manner went on to form everything that exists.

Don't you have to say the same things  about the origin of this first particle of the Universe that I say about the origin of God? 

So, are you  a "Earthly Evolutionist" that is also a "Cosmic Creationist?"  Wouldn't this be an accurate characterization?