The snapshots may not look like much, but they’re revealing a lot about lifeforms at this extremely miniscule size. For one thing, their metabolisms are so minimal that they likely depend on resources from other bacteria to stay alive. While there’s still a lot that remains a mystery (it’s not certain what half of the genes do), this up-close imagery could eventually fill in a lot of blanks in biology — it’s clear that there’s a world of unusual organisms that have gone largely unnoticed. Engadget
Note: If they depend on other bacteria for resources, they probably aren’t going to help much with origin of life studies. They might well be devolved from more metabolically endowed free-living organisms. But there is still so much we don’t know.
See also:
Origin of life: Suzan Mazur to Larry Krauss: Darwinism now marginalized (In his response Krauss does not mention information, the vast amounts of which chiefly distinguish life from non-life.)
and
A synopsis of origin of life
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