Scientists have caught a once-in-a-billion-years evolutionary event in progress, as two lifeforms have merged into one organism that boasts abilities its peers would envy. Last time this happened (1.6 billion years ago), certain advanced cells absorbed a type of bacteria that could harvest energy from sunlight. These became organelles called chloroplasts, which gave sunlight-harvesting abilities, as well as a fetching green color, to a group of lifeforms you might have heard of – plants.

And now, scientists have discovered that it’s happening again. A species of algae called Braarudosphaera bigelowii was found to have engulfed a cyanobacterium that lets them do something that algae, and plants in general, can’t normally do – "fixing" nitrogen straight from the air, and combining it with other elements to create more useful compounds.

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[–] systemglitch 97 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If they saw this happen, then it happens far more often than once in a billion years.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The article says it's been in-progress for the last 100 million years, so "once in a billion years" is really like a 1:10 chance. Gotta get those clicks though.

[–] systemglitch 12 points 7 months ago

That's fair. I expect there are quite a few examples of this happening in various places we are yet to discover.

Some thrive, some die out, but it seems to be a normal evolution of life.