Jun 7, 2006
Study Shows Our Ancestors Survived 'Snowball Earth'
ScienceDaily: Study Shows Our Ancestors Survived 'Snowball Earth': "New research shows organisms called eukaryotes -- organisms of one or more complex cells that engage in sexual reproduction and are ancestors of the animal and plant species present today -- existed 50 million to 100 million years before that ice age and somehow did survive. The work also shows that the cyanobacteria, or blue-green bacteria, that put the oxygen in the atmosphere in the first place, apparently were pumping out oxygen for millions of years before that, and also survived Earth's glaciation."