Could This Be the Oldest Evidence Yet for Multicellular Eukaryotes?

Writing in the journal Nature Communications, Zhu et al. describe new fossil evidence from 1.56-billion-year-old mudstones in North China. The authors interpret these fossils as the oldest record of multicellular eukaryotes so far. But their enthusiasm looks premature.

Interviewed by The Guardian, the first author, Maoyan Zhu, raves: "This totally renews current knowledge on the early history of life." The newspaper's headline echoes the sentiment, reporting: "Complex life on Earth began bi...