Stromatolites—fossils of earliest life on Earth—may owe existence to viruses – Phys.org

As the Mars Rover sets out to look for evidence of life on another planet, scientists back on Earth suggest viruses played a key role in creating stromatolites, our planet’s earliest lifeforms.
It may pain us to hear this during a deadly viral pandemic, but life as we know it on this planet may never have occurred if it weren’t for viruses, scientists studying billion-year-old ‘living rocks’ say.
In a paper published in the March issue of Trends in Microbiology, a team of scientists from UNSW Sydney…

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