Earth before life

Biology Direct

Caren Marzban²  Raju Viswanathan¹  Ulvi Yurtsever³ 

[1] Technome, LLC, 8107 Colmar Drive, Clayton, MO, 63105, USA

[2] Department of Statistics, Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195-4322, USA

[3] MathSense Analytics, 1273 Sunny Oaks Circle, Altadena, CA, 91001, USA

关键词: Prediction interval;    Confidence interval;    Measurement error;    Regression;    Origin;    Evolution;    Genome;   

Others  :  793087
DOI  :  10.1186/1745-6150-9-1

 received in 2013-07-07, accepted in 2013-12-23,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

A recent study argued, based on data on functional genome size of major phyla, that there is evidence life may have originated significantly prior to the formation of the Earth.

Results

Here a more refined regression analysis is performed in which 1) measurement error is systematically taken into account, and 2) interval estimates (e.g., confidence or prediction intervals) are produced. It is shown that such models for which the interval estimate for the time origin of the genome includes the age of the Earth are consistent with observed data.

Conclusions

The appearance of life after the formation of the Earth is consistent with the data set under examination.

Reviewers

This article was reviewed by Yuri Wolf, Peter Gogarten, and Christoph Adami.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Marzban et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

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