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Ediacaran "mushroom" found
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09-09-2014 9:28pm#1Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,761 Mod ✭✭✭✭Join Date:Posts: 89999
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29054889A mushroom-shaped sea animal discovered off the Australian coast has defied classification in the tree of life.
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The authors of the article note several similarities with the bizarre and enigmatic soft-bodied life forms that lived between 635 and 540 million years ago - the span of Earth history known as the Ediacaran Period.
Unfortunately they don't have DNA so we'll have to wait until more are found. But it might shed more light on how diverse live was before the Cambrian "explosion"2
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Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,761 Mod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 89999
DNA was destroyed in preservationYou mean the animals themselves have no DNA, or they haven´t sampled it yet?
One way to resolve the question surrounding Dendrogramma's affinities would be to examine its DNA, but new specimens will need to be found. The original samples were first preserved in formaldehyde and later transferred to 80% alcohol, a mode of treatment that prevents analysis of genetic material.0
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