Intrinsic Iron May Have Promoted Ancient Nervous Tissue Fossilization

Microbial dissolution of hematite and associated cellular fossilization by reduced iron phases: a study of ancient microbe-mineral surface interactions.

We report here on magnetite- and wustite-encrusted and geometrically oriented microbial-like structures (MLS) attached to the surfaces of hematite (alpha-Fe(2)O(3)) crystals in a banded iron formation. Field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging showed a 3-D network of MLS arranged in 1 microm x approximately 20 microm coccoidal-like chain...

Emergent Fossilization

Aging is an inescapable fact of human life. In most areas of our lives, aging leads to an unremarkable, gradual decline in physical ability. For example, no one questions why a 40-year-old runner can no longer compete in the Olympics. As the body ages, metabolism slows, joints wear out, and energy is diminished. Aging also has a uniform natural effect on the learning of new skills. As a result,...

Inner Workings: Special relationship between fungi and plants may have spurred changes to ancient climate.

Look at a plant, and you’re probably also looking at a fungus. More than 80% of land plants partner with fungi to help those plants extract nutrients—nitrogen and phosphorus—from the ground (1, 2). The plants return the favor with carbon from their photosynthesis. Biologists suspect that this partnership was a major factor in allowing plants to move from water to land about 470 million years ag...

Fossilization: five central issues

Second language acquisition research over the past three decades has generated a wide spectrum of different interpretations of “fossilization” – a construct introduced by Selinker (1972) for characterizing lack of grammatical development in second language learning. These conceptual differences found in the literature, it has become increasingly clear, create confusion rather than offering clar...

Nervous Tissue