our 800,000,000 year-old friend...cyano...the hero.

[Sk8r]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140227125508.htm

 

[Arthur1]

Thanks for the link, I'll be reading it shortly

 

[duperdave]

funny how we are always trying to get rid of it.

 

[Octobot]

Interesting article, thanks for the link!

 

[PatW]

Blue green algae which is more properly called Cyanobacteria, have made even bigger contributions to earth's history.

Fossil stromatolites show that Cyanobacteria have been around 3.5 million years making them pretty early on the scene as living things. Back that long ago, the earth's atmosphere did not have any free oxygen. The oxygen in the atmosphere was first put there by cyano bacteria. About a billion years ago, oxygen levels rose high enough for eukaryotes to develop. Then it was a short time until the Cambrian explosion that produced the ancestors of all of our more "advanced" living forms like fish, crustaceans, mollusks, Annelida, and corals. Essentially, Cyanobacteria produced the atmosphere that made our modern world possible. So I guess I can stand their pesky ness.

 

[Amphiprotic]

Blue green algae which is more properly called Cyanobacteria, have made even bigger contributions to earth's history.

Fossil stromatolites show that Cyanobacteria have been around 3.5 million years making them pretty early on the scene as living things. Back that long ago, the earth's atmosphere did not have any free oxygen. The oxygen in the atmosphere was first put there by cyano bacteria. About a billion years ago, oxygen levels rose high enough for eukaryotes to develop. Then it was a short time until the Cambrian explosion that produced the ancestors of all of our more "advanced" living forms like fish, crustaceans, mollusks, Annelida, and corals. Essentially, Cyanobacteria produced the atmosphere that made our modern world possible. So I guess I can stand their pesky ness.

Blows my mind every time I read about this. Not to mention they triggered a massive extinction event with all that oxygen produced :bounce3:

 

[Cyclist]

Ah, but friend or foe?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3295368/

 

[billsreef]

Ah, but friend or foe?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3295368/

Depends on the species, and there are quite a lot of them