Ancestor of all life on Earth evolved earlier than we thought, according to our new timescale

Science may have enabled us to travel in space and trace the history of the entire universe, but it has not yet been able to answer exactly how and when life first arose on our planet, writes Holly Betts.

Traditionally, scientists have used the fossil record to try to answer these questions. Yet, as palaeontologists are all too aware, fossils are increasingly hard to find as we move backwards in time.