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From: GORDON FISHER <>
Subject: The common ancestor of all of us?
Date: Sun, 6 Aug 1995 16:29:18 GMT


"The common ancestor of all life was a single-celled organism of
prokaryotic type, that is, resembling present-day bacteria in lacking
a fenced-off nucleus and having only a rudimentary internal organization."
--- Christian de Duve, *Vital Dust, Life as a Cosmic Imperative*,
1995, p 115

So you can see what we people with an interest in genealogy may be up
against if we expect to go all the way back. Current estimates of
the time of appearance of this common ancestor of us all are around
four billion years ago. <grin>

Gordon Fisher

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