Scientists have spotted in rocks from northern China what may be the oldest fossils of a green plant ever found, tiny seaweed that carpeted areas of the seafloor roughly a billion years ago and were part of a primordial revolution among life on Earth.

Researchers on Monday said the plant, called Proterocladus antiquus, was about the size of a rice grain and boasted numerous thin branches, thriving in shallow water while attached to the seafloor with a root-like structure.

It may seem small, but Proterocladus - a form of green algae - was one of the largest organisms of its time, sharing the seas mainly with bacteria and other microbes. It engaged in photosynthesis, transforming energy from sunlight into chemical energy and producing oxygen.

“Proterocladus antiquus is a close relative of the ancestor of all green plants alive today,” said Qing Tang, a Virginia Tech post-doctoral researcher in paleobiology who detected the fossils in rock dug up in Liaoning Province near the city of Dalian and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Earth’s biosphere depends heavily on plants for food and oxygen. The first land plants, thought to be descendents of green seaweeds, appeared about 450 million years ago.

There was an evolutionary shift on Earth perhaps 2 billion years ago from simple bacteria-like cells to the first members of a group called eukaryotes that spans fungi, plants and animals. The first plants were single-celled organisms. The transition to multicellular plants like Proterocladus was a pivotal development that paved the way for the riot of plants that have inhabited the world, from ferns to sequoias to the Venus flytrap.

Proterocladus is 200 million years older than the previous earliest-known green seaweed. One of its modern relatives is a type of edible seaweed called sea lettuce.

Proterocladus represents the oldest unambiguous green plant fossil. Fossils of possible older single-celled green plants are still a matter of debate.

Plants were not the first to practice photosynthesis. They had an ancestor that apparently acquired the photosynthesis cellular apparatus from a type of bacteria called cyanobacteria.

This ancestor of all green plants gave rise to two major branches, one of them includes some aquatic plants and all land plants while the other - the group to which Proterocladus belongs - is made up exclusively of aquatic plants.

“Proterocladus antiquus,” Virginia Tech paleobiologist and study co-author Shuhai Xiao said, “is the sister of the evolutionary great, great grandmother of all green plants alive today.”

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-seaweed/billion-year-old-chinese-seaweed-is-oldest-green-plant-fossil-idUSKCN20I2IS

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C

I like it

Like I said earlier, evolution is the most irrational course in science
it should be banned ASAP

hm

Can you guys please find cure for the coronivirus in your country first and foremost. Before researching about weeds in the ocean.. The way this people quote years one billion years as if they are really sure, I don't blame you people na black man who failed to discover his potentials. But are only good at over hyping you guys I blame

Botany students are you in the building?!

This is a very vital info.....

But, We always wonder how they know it is a BILLION or a MILLION year old anyways..

Who was there at their christening

Ajsmart:
They’ll soon start quoting Trillion years

Lol
You are not far from the truth!

If you mention the age to religionists they'll ask how the scientists were able to deduce the age , bunch of ignorant fools

I don't understand how these people always conclude on these number of years... How many years precisely has the world been in existence then?

Finally. Some news coming outta China that's not corona

Buhari

All this oyinbo don start again

Ok

How do they know

Can it be smoked though

Nonsense

New findings new troubles

Can it cure coronavirus?

These years are actually speculative, it's obvious that even carbon dating is not accurate method of finding the age of a substance.

Thought Christians say the world was created 6'000 yrs ago

Paleobiology is a different discipline from botany my dear olodo. Stick with suya meat and praise singing for dullards.

post=86970079:
Botany students are you in the building?!

This is a very vital info.....

See-weed

The way scientists mention the ages of plants can be so funny. You mean a billion year!!!

The yes in the mention is crazy

Lemme comment with L I E

Macsjebs:

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-seaweed/billion-year-old-chinese-seaweed-is-oldest-green-plant-fossil-idUSKCN20I2IS

1billion years??

You guys should stop all this na

Ok

cashlurd:
I don't understand how these people always conclude on these number of years... How many years precisely has the world been in existence then?

I'm sure you're gonna say 6000 years

Scientist with years of time is just weird!



I guess they know what it mean to say "BILLION" and then you add "s"


Just trying to rubbish the claims of the bible that doesn't tell us that THE EARTH is up to 20,000 yes old.

can it cure coronavirus?

Next thing we go dey hear buy your packaged Chinese
Sea Weed for curing coronavirus,ebola and aids. For pharmacy dem dey sell one sachet for 5000 naira but for this bus I dey sell am for #500




Meanwhile I sell affordable loans