MIAMI: It took more than 10 years of painstaking work, grinding an Australian rock containing fossils smaller than the eye could see, to confirm the earliest direct evidence of life on Earth, scientists said Monday. Other teams of scientists have reported even earlier signs of fossil life, going back 3.95 billion years. “None of these studies are regarded as proof of life,” lead author John Valley, professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told AFP. But critics raised questions, suggesting instead they were not life but odd minerals that merely looked like biological specimens. However, that study – which proclaimed the oldest evidence of life on Earth – also raised skepticism.

Source: New Strait Times December 18, 2017 22:41 UTC