The Oldest Animal Fossils Discovered to Date Were Alive About 635 Million Years Ago

More than 635 million years ago, sea sponges dominated the Earth's oceans. Scientists have made the discovery based on steroid-type substances that distinguish the existence of the "oldest known fossil evidence of animal life" The National Geographic quotes University of California, Riverside researcher Gordon Love.

The discovery is based on organic chemicals found in sedimentary rock deposits that were analyzed by the Oman national oil company in an oil field located within the Arabian Peninsula in South Omar. The significance of these findings is that they establish the existence of "multicellular animal life on Earth 100 million years earlier than previously believed -- well before the so-called Cambrian explosion 545 million years ago, when such complex organisms were thought to have begun evolving and proliferating dramatically."

"The chemicals, steroids distantly related to testosterone and estrogen, are a unique marker for sponges."

The animals' remains don't look like traditional fossils. They're more like fossil echoes: chemical traces of a compound only produced — at least in modern times — by demosponges, descendants of what some scientists consider to be the last common ancestor of all animals.

"Based on chemical signatures inside sedimentary rocks, Gordon Love and colleagues think the sponges likely grew in colonies that blanketed areas of the ocean floor.

"Back then the supercontinent Rodinia, which had been Earth's dominant landmass for at least 350 million years," Love explained, "was in the process of breaking up, and the climate was extremely cold worldwide.

"It is, definitively, the earliest evidence for animals," said geochemist Gordon Love, who was the main author of the study published in Nature.

"Love's team identified the fossils whose ... sediments date to the last stages of the the aptly-named Cryogenian period after a deep freeze referred to by scientists as Snowball Earth.

"Sponges evolved in shallow ocean basins, because the deeper seas did not yet contain oxygen, a necessity for almost all life."

"Although the environment was harsh at this time," The National Geographic explained, "about a hundred million years before the evolutionary growth spurt known as the Cambrian explosion—a lack of predators made life easier for the sponges."

"There was no competition from more complicated animals, so sponges were probably thriving," Love concluded. "Compared with other times in our history, there were enormously high amounts of them."

"Love and colleagues were able to date the sea sponges because the animals' chemical traces were found in rocks beneath glacial deposits from an ice age that ended about 635 million years ago."

The scientists cut away the outer surfaces of the rock, cleaned the remaining core with solvents, and crushed what was left behind into a powder that could be chemically separated into its component parts.

"It just so happens that these sponges produce very distinctive chemical structures," explained Love, whose team describes their results in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

"Their presence in the Oman rock shows that these precursors of bathtub sponges were the dominant species on the planet for as long as 100 million years, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Nature."

According to the Los Angeles Times: "Sponges are one of the simplest multicellular organisms alive. They live on shallow sea floors and eat detritus that drifts from above. The walls of their cells contain steroids called 24-isopropylcholestanes that are not present in other species."

"After four decades of research, they have never been seen in unicellular organisms other than in trace amounts," said research scientist Gordon Love."

Love and his research teams findings demonstrate that: "Multicellular life far preceded the 'Cambrian explosion' 545 million years ago."

"Until now, the oldest animal fossils dated to Earth's next geological period," called the Ediacaran; "Also known as the Vendian period, a geological period that began at the end of the last ice age of the Snowball Earth. The Edicaran period lasted from 640 million years ago to the start of the Cambrian period 543 million years ago. During it, the first multicellular life-forms, including sponges, jellyfish, and worms appeared. The Ediacaran is named after the Ediacara Hills, just west of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, where peculiar fossils were found in the 1940s. Later it was realized that examples had been reported earlier on other continents.." Scientists had been unsure whether they reflected the actual birth of animal life, or merely the beginning of the fossil record.

"The new findings show that animals indeed evolved before the Ediacaran, giving these humble sponges at least 100 million years to develop the kaleidoscopic physiologies that bloomed during the early Cambrian period."

"Biologists might argue about which animals diverged first," said Love, "but regardless of that, we're certainly looking at very basal animals."

"Kevin Peterson of Dartmouth College and his colleagues had independently hypothesized that sponges lived about 650 million years ago based on biological clues in the genes of modern sponges."

"To see to a robust, geochemical record of a tremendous amount of sponge mass at this time is very exciting," said Peterson, who was not involved in the new study."At some point during this interval, sponges gave rise to more complex organisms, including eventually vertebrates," he said.

"The origin of complex life is rooted in sponge biology, and that's what makes it so exciting for us."

"Other recent research suggests that an ancestor of placozoa — an amoebalike creature whose genome was sequenced in 2008, providing genetic clues of an ancient lineage — was the first animal. Regardless of this taxonomical controversy, however, Love's fossils are clearly old. Both uranium dating and the fossils' sedimentary position confirm a late-Cryogenian origin."

"In a commentary accompanying the findings paleobiologists Jochen Brocks and Nicholas Butterfield raise the possibility that some other organism than a sponge may have left the 24-isopropylcholestane behind. Fossil descendents of sponges, they note, have not been found in the Ediacaran or Cambrian periods."

"Love, however, called the chemical a paleobiological smoking gun."

"Screening has been done on modern organisms, and there's only one that produces these in abundance: demosponges," he said. "One day, we might come across a microbe, but it hasn't happened so far."

"Love next plans to further excavate Cryogenian sediments in order to determine exactly where and when his proto-sponges developed."

"Was it the conditions of the first glaciation that caused a change in biology?" Love questioned. "Was it the aftermath, during a change in ocean chemistry? We're trying to understand the context of the first appearance of animals."

President Obama Trip to Ottawa, Canada Focuses on Bi-Lateral and World Economic Issues

"He waved! President Obama waved to us!" screamed a woman, nearly fainting in a crowd of thousands gathered to greet President Obama at Canada's Parliament. "I've come here to support President Obama and his efforts to bring change to the world," Montreal native Jennifer Thompson told AFP.

"We want to thank him for coming to Canada first," said her friend Beatrice Ofosuah. "I wanted to hug him but they (security) wouldn't let me, and to let him know that we love him and we're praying for him... Our feet are freezing, but our hearts are warm," the Canadian woman said.

AFP reported the festive scene at the Canadian Parliament Building resembled a "party mood," one participant noted. "The only thing missing is a barbecue."

Robin Browne, a native Canadian was there with his two young children and wife said: "It's a very historic occasion -- the first African-American president is in the city where I live,... He's brought a wave of optimism with him." Another onlooker, Matsanga Kaseka said: "His message of hope is for all the world, not just the American people."

A feeling of optimism was everywhere amongst the well-wishers, including a visitor from Germany, Daniel; who expressed his optimism: "I very much hope that things change, that his decisions are not as unilateral as the ones of (former) President Bush,... The whole of Europe hopes that things will change."

In his first official visit to a foreign country, President Barack Obama traveled to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Both leaders agreed that each nation must act in concert with the other in order to challenge the global economic recession in addition to undertake a reinvigorated push to advance green energy technologies.

"I came to Canada on my first trip as president to underscore the closeness and importance of the relationship between our two nations, and to re-affirm the commitment of the United States to work with friends and partners to meet the common challenges of our time," Obama said. "As neighbors, we are so closely linked that sometimes we may have a tendency to take our relationship for granted, but the very success of our friendship throughout history

Obama-Harper Press Conference: Transcript

demands that we renew and deepen our cooperation here in the 21st century."

Harper concurred with Obama's remarks.

"His election to the presidency launches a new chapter in the rich history of Canada-U.S. relations," the Canadian prime minister said. "It is a relationship between allies, partners, neighbors and the closest of friends, a relationship built on our shared values: freedom, democracy and equality of opportunity epitomized by the president himself."

Both leaders announced, once the joint news conference began, their bi-lateral commitment to a “clean energy dialog” as Obama explained, as a step toward the containment of carbon dioxide pollution and the development of smart power grid technology to meet future needs.

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“The people of North America are hurting, and that is why our governments are acting,” President Obama remarked at a news conference held with Prime Minister Harper today in Ottawa. “We know that the financial crisis is global and so our response must be global.”

Obama elaborated: “How we produce and use energy is fundamental to our economic recovery, but also our security and our planet,... We know that we can’t afford to tackle these issues in isolation.”

"Environmental issues are among the thorniest between the United States and Canada," according to The New York Times, "but Mr. Obama and Mr. Harper said that senior officials of both nations would engage in “a clean-energy dialogue” to work out their differences and engage in joint research."

President Obama said: “We’re not going to solve these problems overnight,... describing the dialogue as an “extremely important” first step.

Prime Minister Harper called the United States and Canada “allies, partners, neighbors and the closest of friends,” while Obama urged a “renewed and deepened,” partnership between the two nations.

The New York Times reported that President Obama landed in Ottawa in late morning for "a visit that was expected to focus on the fragile world economy, the sagging auto industry, international trade, Afghanistan and energy — in particular the question of how to turn Alberta’s oil sands into a clean source of power."

The New York Times elaborated that: "The United States is a major importer of Canadian oil, and Mr. Harper has been trying to win an agreement to exempt Canada’s vast tracts of oil sands, which contain up to 173 billion barrels of recoverable oil bound into sand and clay, from regulation." The New York Times explained that Mr. Obama is under intense pressure from environmentalists to resist that effort. Thursday’s visit is not expected to produce any detailed pact, despite the hopeful words on cooperation on environmental issues."

In responding to the oil sands issue President Obama stated: "We are very grateful for the relationship that we have with Canada, and Canada being our largest energy supplier, but I think that increasingly we have to take into account that the issue of climate change and greenhouse gases is something that's going to have an impact on all of us and as two relatively wealthy countries, it's important for us to show leadership."

At issue for Obama is "Canada's development of the Alberta tar sands as a source of oil exports. The sands produce low-grade bitumen at great environmental cost."

The New York Times provided more background on the oil sands issue: "In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation prior to his trip, Mr. Obama stopped short of using the word dirty, as environmentalists do, to describe the process of extracting oil from the sands. But he said extraction work there “creates a big carbon footprint.”

In addition; "Mr. Obama may also face tensions with Mr. Harper over the issue of trade; Canada is up in arms over a “Buy America” provision inserted by Congress into the $787 billion economic recovery package Mr. Obama just signed into law, and Canadians have not forgotten Mr. Obama’s campaign pledge to reopen negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement — a pledge he has since backed away from.

The New York Times continued: "Instead, White House officials say Mr. Obama will stress drafting new environmental and labor protection side-agreements to the pact, and will emphasize the $1.5 billion-a-day trading relationship between the United States and Canada, the largest trading relationship in the world."

Former Bush ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, said Mr. Obama would be wise to strike a friendly tone with Canada: “As he deals with strong allies like Canada, I think he is going to have to listen to them,” Mr. Cellucci said. “You don’t want to go down the road of a trade war, if we’re getting all this energy from Canada and it’s a reliable source of energy. It’s not Venezuela, it’s not the Middle East. Why would we want to jeopardize that?”

Bloomberg reported that: "Obama also said he raised with Harper the idea of strengthening labor and environmental provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement. He said he and his advisers are seeking ways of doing that without disrupting the U.S. trade relationship with Canada."

"Harper said Nafta has been “nothing but beneficial” to both countries. He said there may be ways to address Obama’s concerns without “opening the whole Nafta” accord."

The two heads of state also discussed the ailing auto makers.

“One thing we know for certain is that there’s going to have to be a significant restructuring of that industry,” Obama said. “It’s going to be very important for our government to coordinate closely with the Canadian government in whatever approach that we decide to take.” Bloomberg provided background: "Earlier this week, General Motors Corp., and Chrysler LLC said they are seeking up to $21.6 billion in new federal loans during their restructuring efforts designed to avert bankruptcy." Bloomberg continued: "Both companies also are seeking government loans and assistance from Canada. The first meeting of an Obama administration task force on the auto industry led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and top White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers is set for tomorrow. The panel will review plans by GM and Chrysler to stay viable as businesses."

Press Secretary Gibbs explained: "“The task force meeting will be the beginning of the process” for the administration to determine “what type of restructuring we’re talking about” for automakers.

The Washington Post reported that: "Obama and Harper also pledged to work together in the fight against terrorism, especially in Afghanistan, where Canadian soldiers have been fighting and dying for years."

The Washington Post continued: "In his first public comments since ordering an additional 17,000 troops to the war-torn country earlier this week, Obama said that "it was necessary to stabilize the situation there in advance of the elections that are coming up.""

"The president declined to say how long the troops will remain there, saying that such a statement," according to The Washington Post, "would pre-empt the 60-day review of policy in the region that he has ordered. Harper likewise declined to say whether his country's troops will remain beyond the 2011 authorization that exists already, though he described a constrained long-term goal for the effort there."

Harper added: "We are not in the long term, through our own efforts, going to establish peace and security in Afghanistan. That, that job, ultimately, can be done only by the Afghans, themselves."

On the flight back from Ottawa to Washington an impromptu press briefing was held by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and deputy press secretary Jim Steinberg who fielded questions on President Obama's trip to the Canadian capital. The transcript can be found here

President Obama Announces $75 Billion Mortage Relief Plan To Help Millions of Americans Keep Their Homes

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Remarks by the President on the mortgage crisis

President Obama gave a speech today in Mesa, a Phoenix, Arizona suburb in which he disclosed his new Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan.

The White House summarized four fundamental components of his plan and they include:

1 refinancing help for four to five million homeowners who receive their mortgages through Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
2 new incentives for lenders to modify the terms of sub-prime loans at risk of default and foreclosure
3 steps to keep mortgage rates low for millions of middle class families looking to secure new mortgages
4 additional reforms designed to help families stay in their homes

Speaking in a high school gymnasium in Mesa, Arizona Obama said "I'm here today to talk about a crisis unlike we've ever known,"

"The American dream is being tested by a home mortgage crisis that not only threatens the stability of our economy but also the stability of families and neighborhoods," the president warned the crowd. "It is a crisis that strikes at the heart of the middle class: the homes in which we invest our savings and build our lives, raise our families and plant roots in our communities."

"There will be a cost associated with this plan," the president said. "But by making these investments in foreclosure prevention today, we will save ourselves the costs of foreclosure tomorrow.

"We will help between 7 and 9 million families restructure or refinance their mortgages so they can avoid foreclosure," the president said. "And we are not just helping homeowners at risk of falling over the edge, we are preventing their neighbors from being pulled over that edge too."

Obama placed a price tag of "... $75 billion (on the) foreclosure prevention program aimed at arresting the problem that ignited the nation's spiraling economic problems."

Obama urged on the crowd: "If we go back to our roots, our core values, then I am confident we will overcome this crisis and once again secure that dream for ourselves and for generations to come."

Obama told the packed crowd that his plan is intended to help homeowners at risk of losing their homes relief. "The plan I'm announcing focuses on rescuing families who have played by the rules and acted responsibly: by refinancing loans for millions of families in traditional mortgages who are underwater or close to it," Obama explained.

"In the end, all of us are paying a price for this home mortgage crisis,” Obama explained to the crowd. “And all of us will pay an even steeper price if we allow this crisis to deepen — a crisis which is unraveling homeownership, the middle class, and the American Dream itself.”

“This plan will not save every home, but it will give millions of families resigned to financial ruin a chance to rebuild,” the president announced to the people in the crowded gymnasium. “It will prevent the worst consequences of this crisis from wreaking even greater havoc on the economy. And by bringing down the foreclosure rate, it will help to shore up housing prices for everyone.”

The New York Times analyzed the plan and broke it down into three interrelated parts:

First, the plan "... would help homeowners who continue to make loan payments on time but are paying high interest rates and would otherwise not be able to refinance because they do not have enough equity or their houses are worth less than they borrowed."

Second, the plan "... would assist people who are at risk of foreclosure by providing incentives to lenders to alter the terms of loans to make them substantially more affordable to struggling homeowners."

Third, the plan "... would try to assure that there is plenty of credit available for mortgages by giving $200 billion of additional financial backing to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-controlled mortgage finance companies."

Mr. Obama took full advantage of the large boisterous crowd when he engaged in a populist critique of profiteers and “lenders who knowingly took advantage of homebuyers.”

“It will not help speculators who took risky bets on a rising market and bought homes not to live in but to sell,” Obama pledged, adding, “And it will not reward folks who bought homes they knew from the beginning they would never be able to afford.”

The Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan will take effect on March 4th, and lets non-delinquent homeowners to participate, The New York Times noted: "when the administration publishes detailed rules explaining it. Most of the plan can be enacted by Mr. Obama though his executive powers, although part of it — including changing the bankruptcy laws to allow homeowners to seek changes to their mortgages through bankruptcy proceedings — will require legislation. Mr. Geithner said the administration was already in discussions with lawmakers on how to proceed."

"My administration will continue to support reforming our bankruptcy rules so that we allow judges to reduce home mortgages on primary residences to their fair market value -- as long as borrowers pay their debts under a court-ordered plan," Obama explained.

The New York Times explains: "Mr. Obama’s plan boils down to a handful of basic components that are aimed at two distinct groups of homeowners: an estimated three million to four million distressed homeowners who are in danger of foreclosure; and a potentially much larger number of people who are not in immediate distress but are paying rates higher than available to creditworthy borrowers now and who will probably be resentful about bailouts going to others.

"The effects of this crisis have also reverberated across the financial markets. When the housing market collapsed, so did the availability of credit on which our economy depends," the president warned. "As that credit has dried up, it has been harder for families to find affordable loans to purchase a car or pay tuition and harder for businesses to secure the capital they need to expand and create jobs."

President Obama's plan will of course be confronted by "fierce opposition from the financial services industry and Republicans. About 150 consumer bankruptcy lawyers descended on Capitol Hill last week to lobby for the measure."

The National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, Maureen Thompson said: "These attorneys see every day the real-world impact of the failure over the last 18 months of meaningful solutions from Washington."

"Credit Suisse has estimated that more than 8 million mortgages could fall into foreclosure during the next four years."

John McClain, deputy director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University which monitors the Washington, D.C. region indicates that "Foreclosures have hit a plateau in some markets, but could spike again as a second wave of risky loans adjust to higher payments starting in late 2009... What Obama does for helping the foreclosure situation is key to preventing that wave from getting here."

After Signing $787 Billion Recovery Package into Law, Obama Doesn't Rule Out A Second Stimulus Package

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After the signing ceremony for the $787 billion economic recovery package into law in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science was completed. Obama administration press secretary, Robert Gibbs told the assembled press that a second economic stimulus bill would “set our economy on a firmer foundation.” And the president would not commit to acknowledging “that today marks the end of our economic problems.” Obama continued: “Nor does it constitute all of what we have to do to turn our economy around,... But today does mark the beginning of the end, the beginning of what we need to do to create jobs for Americans scrambling in the way of layoffs.”

Earlier at the signing ceremony, Obama remarked: “Nor does it constitute all of what we have to do to turn our economy around,... But today does mark the beginning of the end, the beginning of what we need to do to create jobs for Americans scrambling in the way of layoffs.”

Speaking to reporters as the president flew to Denver, Gibbs said; “I think the president is going to do what’s necessary to grow this economy.” Adding that “there are no particular plans at this point for a second stimulus package,” he added, “I wouldn’t foreclose it.”

Economic Stimulus Bill Toughened by Senator Dodd Signed into Law by President Obama Severely Limits Wall Street CEO Bonuses

Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs stealthily slipped an amendment into the $787 billion economic stimulus bill that will set severe restrictions on bonuses and other types of compensation for executives at financial institutions receiving taxpayer bailout monies.

The significance of Mr. Dodd's amendment is that it imposes considerably more "wide-ranging restrictions on how — and by how much — top executives at companies receiving federal bailout money can be compensated," than the Obama Treasury Department had requested just a few days earlier.

In taking this action, Senator Dodd's amendment "imposes new limits on executive compensation that could significantly curb multimillion dollar pay packages on Wall Street."

CNN explains: "The (Dodd) measure would cap bonuses — often far more lucrative than base salaries for top executives — and could require executives at companies that have already received bailout money to pay back some of their compensation if it exceeded certain limits.

CNN summarizes four salient aspects of the Dodd amendment: "Firms taking more than $500 million from TARP would be required to restrict compensation paid to the 20 top-earning employees as well as to key executives. For companies getting $250 million to $500 million from TARP, it would be senior executives and the top 10 earning employees, and the number of affected employees would go down from there for companies taking less than $250 million from TARP.

"Golden parachutes" for senior executive officers or the next five most highly-compensated employees would be banned at companies receiving TARP funds, ending those often-sizeable severance payments for departing executives.

"Top executives at TARP-funded firms would be barred from receiving bonuses exceeding one-third of their annual salary. For many top executives that would mean a dramatic reduction. The Wall Street Journal cited as an example the 2007 compensation of Bank of America Corp. CEO Kenneth D. Lewis, who was paid a salary of $1.5 million that year but who actually earned a total of $16.4 million including a bonus, stock-option awards and restricted stock. At the same salary level, Lewis' 2009 compensation would be restricted to about $2.25 million under the Dodd provisions, the Journal said.

In a statement released by Senator Chris Dodd's office concerning the amendment he attached to the economic stimulus bill that is intended to end huge bonuses for executives at firms that received funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP):

“I’m delighted that my amendment to impose tough new limits on huge bonuses for executives working in firms that receive taxpayer funds will be included in the final economic recovery bill. The decisions of certain Wall Street executives to enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers have seriously undermined public confidence in efforts to stabilize the economy. American taxpayers deserve better. With vigorous oversight by the Treasury Department and by Congress, these tough new rules will help ensure that taxpayer dollars no longer effectively subsidize lavish Wall Street bonuses.”

For a written transcript of the president's remarks in Denver at the signing click

Now, the stimulus bill, which "President Obama signed today "in Denver, Colorado" at a signing ceremony; "limits bonuses for executives at all financial institutions receiving government funds to no more than a third of their annual compensation. The bonuses must be paid in company stock that can be redeemed only when the government investment has been repaid. With the measure, lawmakers seek to address public outrage over extravagant Wall Street paydays even as taxpayers bail out the industry." Reported the Washington Post. Furthermore, The Post adds Senator Dodd's "limits in the stimulus bill would apply to top executives and the highest-paid employees at all 359 banks that have already received government aid.

In commenting on the more rigid restrictions on CEO bonuses, Scott Talbot, who is employed by several of the nation's most significantly sized financial businesses, said: "This is a big deal. This is a problem,... It undermines the current incentive structure."

The Washington Post explained: "Bonuses make up much of financial executives' take-home pay, so the new rules could significantly diminish their compensation. For example, Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein made $68.5 million in 2007 -- a Wall Street record -- but $67.9 million of that was in bonus and other incentive pay that analysts said would be subject to the new rules." The Post cited another example: "Citigroup's top executive, Vikram Pandit, has voluntarily agreed to a $1 salary until his company returns to profitability. In theory, this means that Pandit would be allowed an annual bonus of pennies."