Posting 4

Scientists find 'man's remotest relative' in lake sludge

Author: AFP
April 26, 2012

After two decades of examining a microscopic algae-eater that lives in a lake in Norway, scientists on Thursday declared it to be one of the world's oldest living organisms and man's remotest relative.

The elusive, single-cell creature evolved about a billion years ago and did not fit in any of the known categories of living organisms -- it was not an animal, plant, parasite, fungus or alga.

"We have found an unknown branch of the tree of life that lives in this lake. It is unique!" University of Oslo researcher Kamran Shalchian-Tabrizi said.

"So far we know of no other group of organisms that descends from closer to the roots of the tree of life than this species", which has been declared a new category of organism called Collodictyon.

Scientists believe the discovery may provide insight into what life looked like on earth hundreds of millions of years ago.  

It has four flagella -- tail-like propellers it uses to move around, and can only be seen with a microscope. It is 30 to 50 micrometers (millions of a metre) long.

Opinion

What confounds me is that brilliant scientists like University of Oslo researcher Kamran Shalchian-Tabrizi are dedicating their entire careers to figure out what life was like billions of years ago.  This discovery will have no impact on anyone outside the discipline of the science community that studies this algae-eater.  We live in a world where more pressing problems are presented to us, and researchers should be dedicating their time into these immediate issues.  

http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-mans-remotest-relative-lake-sludge-183424136.html