University of California •

Evolution is a way of life and living things regularly evolve and change to adapt to the changing environment. However, having said that there are some things which never change even after 2 billion years.

An international team of researchers have unearthed a deep sea microorganism that has not evolved in at least two billion years, nearly half the age of the planet. Researchers were quick to point out the fact that it provides ironically the best proof for Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, said lead researcher J. William Schopf. The findings were published in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Professor of earth, planetary and space sciences at the University of California in Los Angeles, Schopf explains, “If evolution is as we understand it, organisms adapt to a changing environment. But if you take away any changes then there should be no evolution.”

Schopf added that he was right from his college days some 50 years ago looking for a permanent, durable environment which could provide credence to the theory that absence of evolution will lead to equal absence of changes.

The research team found living specimens of sulfur eating bacteria off the coast of Western Australia in the muddy sediments on the ocean floor. Needless to say there is no oxygen or light. Neither are there any waves to disturb the sediments.

Using the latest diagnostic technology researchers were able to compare the microbes with a set of fossils preserved in rocks found in Western Australia’s coastal waters that date back 2.3 billion years ago. This was also a time when there was a remarkable spike in oxygen levels; this produced an increase in oxygen-containing sulfate and nitrate compounds that sunk to the bottom of the ocean. They provided the “food” that allowed these bacteria to thrive and multiply.

They also match up exactly with fossils from 1.8 billion years ago found in the same area.

Charles Darwin explained how species changed overtime in response to a change in environment. The latest discovery fits in well with Darwin’s theory since it explains how organisms do not change or evolve if there is no change in the environment.

A new study reveals that babies process and store memories during the many naps which they take during the course of the day.

Study author Sabine Seehagen, a child and adolescent psychology researcher with Ruhr University Bochum in Germany said, “We discovered that sleeping shortly after learning helps infants to retain memories over extended periods of time. In both of our experiments, only those infants who took an extended nap for at least half an hour within four hours after learning remembered the information.”

Though the study does not confirm that the naps help in retention of the memories, but the researchers believe that this is exactly what is happening.

The study involved two experiments and in each one babies aged in between 6 months to 12 months were taught how to remove mittens from animal puppets. Some of the babies took a nap after half –hour while some did not. Total 216 babies were tested.

The researchers later tested if the babies remembered how to remove the mittens 24 hours later. The researchers found that only those babies who had taken naps after learning actually remembered what they had learnt after 24 hours.

The researchers found that only the babies who’d taken naps after learning actually remembered what they’d learned, especially after 24 hours.

Angela Lukowski, an assistant professor of psychology and social behavior at the University of California, Irvine said, “The small number of studies makes it difficult to make firm recommendations to parents. The lesson for parents seems to be that napping after learning may help infants remember information over time.”

Validation of Darwin’s Theory; Bacteria That Hasn’t Evolved in 2 Billion Years

Sleep is essential for Learning in Early Life: Study

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