The ancient Earth juxtaposed with the modern Earth connected by a jagged arrow describing the discovery of metabolism over time (IMAGE)

Tokyo Institute of Technology

The ancient Earth juxtaposed with the modern Earth connected by a jagged arrow describing the discovery of metabolism over time

Caption

Metabolism is the "beating heart of the cell". New research from ELSI retraces the history of metabolism from the primordial Earth to the modern day (left to right). The history of compound discovery over time (white line) is cyclic, almost resembling an EKG.

Credit

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Francis Reddy/NASA/ESA

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License

CC BY

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