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A newly discovered life form could help resolve one of the most contentious conundrums in modern biology. All organisms on Earth are classified as either prokaryotes, which have simple cells, or eukaryotes, which have larger, more complex cells. But the two cell types are so divergent that understanding how one evolved from the other has foxed biologists. The new microbes, reported in Nature journal, go some way to bridging that gap. They have been named Lokiarchaeota, partly after the Loki's Castle volcanic vent system lying 15km away from the site where the microbes' genetic material was isolated in cold marine...

Cells' Molecular Motor Diversity Confounds Evolution by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * Scientists believe that the study of genes that encode the proteins for molecular motors will help solve the mysteries of evolution. However, the result of a study published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution has only served to support the predictions of special creation—that unique variants of cellular complexity and innovation exist at all levels of life.1 Molecular motors are important features of eukaryotic cells that are formed by a variety of protein types. One group of molecular motors is called the myosins, which have recently been studied...

Researchers from the University of Oslo have discovered a protozoan species that may belong to a new branch of the tree of life, says Popular Science's Rebecca Boyle. The researchers, who describe their findings in Molecular Biology and Evolution, say they found the microorganism — called Collodictyon — in lake sludge in Norway, and that it may be related to some of the planet's earliest life forms. "It is not a fungus, alga, parasite, plant, or animal, yet it has features associated with other kingdoms of life," Boyle says. "It could be a founding member of the newest kingdom on...