For anyone else trying to follow this research, the article is describing the paper by Moody et al. from a year and a half ago.
Is the article missing words?
While the Cambrian Explosion kickstarted complex life in a major way some 530 million years, the true timeline of life on Earth is much longer. For years, scientists have estimated that LUCA likely arrived on the scene some 4 billion years, which is only 600 million years after the planet’s formation.
530 million years ago? 530 million years after the earth formed?
4 billion years ago?
You know what? I’m happy. It means the article was not written by AI, because AI would not have made such a stupid mistake.
until the ai carches on and starts intentionally making mistakes to pass our new turing test better than we can
Since the 4 billion years is contrasted with 600 million years after rhe planet formed, I assume they meant “years ago”. Very unclear though.
Thanks for nothing, LUCA.
…scientists still don’t understand how life evolved from its very origins to the early communities of which LUCA is a part.
Failure of alien biocontainment systems. Or maybe deliberate life seeding. Or hitchhiking enclosed ecosystem, like a biosphere, on a meteorite.