A microorganism scooped up in deep-sea mud off Japan's coast has helped scientists unlock the mystery of one of the watershed evolutionary events for life on Earth: the transition from the simple cells that first colonized the planet to complex cellular life — fungi, plants and animals including people.
Researchers said on Wednesday they were able to study the biology of the microorganism, retrieved from depths of about 1.5 miles (2.5 km), after coaxing it to grow in the laboratory. They named it Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum, referring to the Greek mythological figure Prometheus who created humankind from clay and stole fire from the gods.
Prometheoarchaeum's spherical cell — with a diameter of roughly 500 nanometers, or one-20,000th of a centimeter — boasts long, often branching tentacle-like appendages on its outer surface.