Overview
- The model identified molecular signals consistent with oxygen-producing photosynthesis at least 2.5 billion years ago, extending the chemical record by roughly 800 million years.
- Researchers combined high-resolution pyrolysis–GC–MS with supervised learning to read patterns across fragment distributions instead of relying on intact biomarkers.
- A dataset of 406 specimens spanning ancient rocks, fossils, modern organisms, and meteorites enabled the algorithm to separate biotic from abiotic material.
- Earlier work reliably found such chemical traces only in rocks younger than about 1.7 billion years, a threshold this approach appears to surpass.
- The team describes the technique as a complement to traditional methods and says it could guide future searches for past life on Mars and icy moons.