Scientists have rewritten the history of life on Earth with a new estimate for the age of LUCA, or the Last Universal Common Ancestor, who is generally acknowledged as the common ancestor of all living things, thanks to a ground-breaking study.
The study, which was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, indicates that LUCA lived approximately 4.2 billion years ago, which is significantly closer to Earth's origin than previously thought.
LUCA, a common ancestor to all organisms and not the first life form, has been a controversial topic among scientists for centuries. Life fossil evidence goes back as far as 3.4 billion years, yet this study proposes that LUCA might be close to being the same age as the Earth. The genetic code and DNA replication, which are two of the vital biological processes, might have developed almost immediately after the planet was formed. READ MORE...
