Meet your maker

• Autores: Michael Le Page
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2982, 2014, págs. 30-33
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In 1859, when Charles Darwin published On The Origin of Species, he dedicated an entire chapter to the problem of missing "intermediate links"--transitional forms that bridged the evolutionary gaps between closely related species. Then came the spectacular discovery, in 1861, of Archaeopteryx, with the wings and feathers of a bird and the teeth and tail of a dinosaur. Since then people have discovered a multitude of intermediate links: fish that could crawl, lizards with mammal-like jaws, whales with legs, giraffes with short necks and many other. But there's one they are unlikely ever to find: the link between the earliest proto-life and life as they know it, also known as the last universal common ancestor (LUCA). Here, Le Page delves into the primordial soup.