Strange microbes give clues to the ancestor of all complex life

Mysterious microbes living in wetlands in China have helped to narrow down when the ancestor of all animals and plants lived – and the oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere may have played a key role in its emergence.

The new data brings us a step closer to understanding “an event which happened billions of years ago”, says Burak Avcı at Aarhus University in Denmark.

This event was…