CRYSTALS that look just like fossilised bacteria have been grown in the lab, disproving the idea that such structures are too complex to form in the absence of life.
The conclusion has serious repercussions for the debate about the emergence of life on Earth, and the search for life on other planets. The world was stunned in 1996 by news that a Martian meteorite, ALH84001, appeared to contain fossils of alien nanobacteria. Similarly, controversy has dogged the interpretation of microscopic worm-like structures embedded in Australian rocks, ever since their discovery in the 1980s. William Schopf, now at the University of…
