[JimSEA]

The positive indication of photosynthesis related graphite (carbon) combined with indications that the earth at 4.1 billion years ago was similar to today geologically in between the massive bombardment episodes showers shows a likelihood of very early life. This lends support to another recent study of early atmospheres (Earth Had Oxygen Much Earlier Than Thought)

[knarf]

Shouldn't that then be ...

14.1 THOUSAND years ago ?

[Robert A Cook PE]

This moves the date a little bit, but it remains true: Photosynthesis those billions of years ago REMOVED trillions of tons of CO2 from the air, released the oxygen we breathe now ... and killed all of the life that relied on the CO2 but whose life was ended by O2.

I’ve got the original fossils of those clusters at home

[Mechanicos]

The Decreasing Speed of Light - Evidence by Barry Setterfield
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdTlOVTDbNU

[JoeProBono]

[oldplayer]

OK. Now, if only INTELLIGENT life would emerge!
Oldplayer

[SierraWasp]

Get outa here with that BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, before I call the cops!!!

[woofie]

A hundred million here
A hundred million there
It adds up.

[panzerkamphwageneinz]

That’s when everything came from nothing. You have to love evolutionary nonsense. Everything comes from nothing and the nothing which gave us something made more complex things and those things became proteins and since it is like 1 to the 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 chance that a protein could create itself, it then programmed itself to become even more complex systems like molecules and RNA and DNA and well you get the idea. Given enough time everything can come from nothing. This leaves us with the hope that even those that believe in evolution- given enough billion years might evolve into a more complex being therefore placing one more step between them and the apes they think are their ancestors.

I on the other hand, am formed in the image of the Creator and His Son. It’s good to know who your father is.

[Vermont Lt]

Zircon?

Did they find the bones of a guy trying to pass zircon off as a diamond? Those things have been getting guys killed for centuries.

[Jack Hydrazine]

I hear Carl Sagan is laughing in his grave billions and billions of times over!

[Manly Warrior]

Pretty soon scientists will be stating that life began very shortly after it was created- say, maybe the third day after?

[TigersEye]

-- that indicates the presence of photosynthetic life.

What gets me is how tough plant life is and how hard it is to grow a decent garden!

[Rodamala]

I’ve heard of zircon encrusted tweezers, but not zircon encrusted graphite.

[Mama Shawna]

BFL. Fascinating stuff!!

[JRios1968]

UCLA geochemists have found evidence that life likely existed on Earth at least 4.1 billion years ago...

[DungeonMaster]

6000 years ago.

[samtheman]

UCLA geochemists have found evidence that life likely existed on Earth at least 4.1 billion years ago — 300 million years earlier than previous research suggested. The discovery indicates that life may have begun shortly after the planet formed 4.54 billion years ago.

---

One way of thinking about it is that 4.54 billion minus 4.1 billion equals .44 billion years.

440 million years isn’t “shortly after the planet formed”.

It’s a long, long, long, long time. A lot longer than Patrick can whistle.