AI spots ancient life in 3.3-billion-year-old rocks
Researchers just used AI to uncover signs of life in rocks that are 3.3 billion years old—almost doubling the previous record for finding biological molecules.
This breakthrough, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gives us a whole new window into Earth's earliest days.
How did they pull this off?
The team trained a machine learning model to distinguish between biological and non-biological molecules.
Their AI can tell if something is biological with more than 90% accuracy—even when traditional methods miss them.
Why does it matter?
They also found evidence that oxygen-producing photosynthesis was happening more than 2.5 billion years ago—pushing this timeline back by more than 800 million years.
This technique could seriously change how we look for signs of life on Mars or other worlds, making the hunt for extraterrestrial life feel a bit more real.