At 11:26 AM 8/15/99 -0700, Deborah Wisti-Peterson wrote:

>i just read this article that appeared in today's new york times

<snip>

Last week, two days after the Kansas school board decision,
>paleontologists published evidence that may push back the appearance of
>complex life -- single cells with nuclei -- by as much as a billion years.

Does anyone know what this is about? It appears to mean that there are now
fossils of nucleated cells (eukaryotes, which include BIRDS) that are about
a billion years older than Grypania, a fossil green alga from over 2
billion years ago. This would mean that eukaryotes as well as bacteria are
represented by fossils in excess of 3 billion years old. Alternatively, I'm
not sure how universally Grypania is accepted as a legitimate eukaryote, so
it might mean only that there is better evidence for fossil eukaryotes
that are more than 1.7 billion years old. Did anyone notice this news story
go by?

Paul Talbert
Seattle
tuisto at oz.net