Long-lost relatives found at bottom of Arctic Ocean

Abstract

An entirely new group of organisms discovered at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean are human's closest simple-celled relatives ever found. Approximately 2 billion years ago, complex eukaryotic cells, which make up animals, plants and fungi, split from smaller, simpler cells called prokaryotes. Researchers have now identified human's closest relatives from before this split. Thijs Ettema at Uppsala University, Sweden, and his team discovered the new organisms when they analyzed DNA extracted from underwater sediment near Loki's Castle, a region of hydrothermal vents along the Arctic mid-ocean ridge.