A team of scientists digging up some of the Earth’s oldest rocks has uncovered new chemical evidence that Earth’s first ...

MIT geochemists offer compelling evidence that ancient sea sponges were Earth's first animals, emerging over 541 million ...

Sometime before 520 million years ago, animal life began to flourish as never before. The small shells, worms and even sponge-like enigmas of earlier eras suddenly unfolded into a new array of species ...

With C30 and C31 sterols now validated as biomarkers of ancient sponges, the team plans to expand their search to other ...

Scientists at MIT have uncovered compelling evidence that ancient sea sponges were Earth's first animals. Chemical fossils ...

Scientists discovered molecular fossils that reveal sponges were among Earth’s earliest animals.

A team of MIT geochemists has unearthed new evidence in very old rocks suggesting that some of the first animals on Earth were likely ancestors of the modern sea sponge ... This period took place just ...

Researchers found “chemical fossils” in ancient rocks containing 30-carbon steranes, a stable form of sterols present in the cell membranes of complex organisms.

What were the first animals to appear on Earth? New research points to a surprising candidate: sea sponges. A team of ...