Hinting at answer to a chicken-or-egg question on evolution
Science & Tech Hinting at answer to a chicken-or-egg question on evolution Felix Elling, a former postdoctoral fellow at Harvard and lead author of the study.Courtesy of Felix Elling Clea Simon Harvard Correspondent February 24, 2025 4 min read Accidental find may help scientists resolve which evolved first: ability to produce oxygen by photosynthesis or consume it by aerobic metabolism For biochemists, it’s the which-came-first question: oxygen production by photosynthesis or oxygen consumption by aerobic metabolism? In photosynthesis, algae and plants take in sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into fuel for growth, releasing oxygen as a byproduct. Animals, on the other hand, use oxygen to convert the fuel they consume into energy and emit carbon dioxide, a process called aerobic metabolism. So which came first? A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences details an accidental discovery by an international consortium of researchers of a possible missing-link molecule that may lead to an answer...