Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll learn when you read this story:<\/p>\n
Scientists believe they\u2019ve found evidence that life on Earth is over a billion years older than anyone believed was realistic.<\/p>\n
New research used machine learning to scan ancient meteorites and fossils for traces of photosynthetic biomolecules.<\/p>\n
The artificial intelligence pinpointed long-lost \u201cwhispers\u201d of biomolecules in rocks that are billions of years old.<\/p>\n
Evidence of ancient life on Earth<\/a> is tough to track down, but a group of scientists believe they\u2019ve managed to find some of the oldest. Using machine learning, they\u2019ve estimated that the oldest biomolecules we know of are about 2.5 billion years old, and the oldest biosignatures<\/a> are 3.3 billion years old\u2014over a billion years older than anyone thought possible.<\/p>\n In a new study, published <\/a>in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the authors claim that their findings both deepen our understanding of Earth\u2019s earliest biosphere and provide new avenues for potentially finding past life on Mars and other planets.<\/p>\n The team, led by the Carnegie Science research institute, studied the world\u2019s oldest rocks to make it happen. They used high-resolution chemical analysis to break down organic and inorganic material from the rocks<\/a> into molecular fragments, and trained an artificial intelligence system to recognize the chemical fingerprints left behind by life. By analyzing 406 diverse samples (both ancient and modern) of plants, animals, fossils, and meteorites, the AI model learned to distinguish between biological and non-biological material with over 90 percent accuracy.<\/p>\n The model\u2019s biggest splash came in the form of the detection of signs of photosynthesis in rocks at least 2.5 billion years old. Until now, only rocks younger than 1.7 billion years old<\/a> have shown those traces.<\/p>\n \u201cAncient life leaves more than fossils; it leaves chemical echoes,\u201d Robert Hazen, a senior staff scientist at Carnegie Science and the study\u2019s lead author, said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cUsing machine learning, we can now reliably interpret these echoes for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n The chemistry \u2018partnered\u2019 with machine learning to show faint chemical \u201cwhispers\u201d of biology locked inside the ancient rocks. The computers were trained to recognize any type of molecular trace left behind by living organisms, even well after the biomolecules were long gone.<\/p>\n The team said that Earth\u2019s earliest life hasn\u2019t left many molecular traces, and any ancient cells that were still around were eventually swallowed up by Earth\u2019s crust<\/a>, all but obliterating biosignatures that could hold clues about the origins of life. The research team, though, believes their ancient rocks can bring that history back to the surface, providing glimpses of the ghosts of biomolecules long after those molecules have degraded.<\/p>\n \u201cAncient rocks are full of interesting puzzles that tell us the story of life on Earth, but a few of the pieces are always missing,\u201d Katie Maloney, an assistant professor in Michigan State University and co-author of the study, said in a statement. \u201cPairing chemical analysis and machine learning has revealed biological clues about ancient life that were previously invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n Most of the organic molecules from the past have been significantly altered by geological processes through deep time, but they\u2019re still quite useful to study. The authors wrote that applying machine learning techniques nearly doubles time in the fossil organic matter record that can retain detectable molecular information, offering a fresh way to approach studying ancient Earth.<\/p>\n This process isn\u2019t restricted to Earth-formed fossils, either. \u201cThis innovative technique helps us to read the deep time fossil record in a new way,\u201d Maloney said. \u201cThis could help guide the search for life on other planets<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n You Might Also Like<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll learn when you read this story: Scientists believe they\u2019ve found evidence that life on Earth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[162451,78683,162452,2300,68937,1877,79],"class_list":["post-316313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ancient-rocks","tag-biomolecules","tag-chemical-analysis","tag-earth","tag-life-on-earth","tag-machine-learning","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}