Word: fossilizing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Modern reef-building corals are descendants of organisms that first appeared in the fossil record 225 million years ago. These ancient carnivores, cousins of sea anemones and jellyfish, boast stinging cells and tentacles for stunning and capturing prey. But while corals have survived the onset of major ice ages and variations in sea level of hundreds of feet, there are limits to the conditions they can tolerate. For example, they cannot build reefs in water colder than 60[degrees] F or in murky depths. They live in symbiotic relationships with colonies of tiny algae called zooxanthellae that depend...
...every auto company in the world is desperately seeking an engine to replace the internal-combustion machine that has been powering cars, consuming oceans of fossil fuel and polluting the universe for about 100 years. GM, in fact, will begin selling a battery-powered electric car in California this year. California, locked in a perpetual automotive smog, requires that by 2003, 10% of the cars offered for sale in the state produce zero emissions; many states are expected to follow suit...
...space has made a giant leap forward, and many churches are nervous about attacks on creationism. Scientists have not claimed they have found definitive proof of extraterrestrial life, yet the microscopic evidence is being treated as such by most of the media. Even if scientists did find a bacterial fossil that was truly from Mars, that's still a long way from E.T. phoning home or from aliens blowing up our major cities. Darn. ROBERT BRENNEMAN Muskogee, Oklahoma...
...NASA and university researchers revealed that this well-traveled, 4.2-lb. stone--about the size of a large Idaho potato--had brought with it the first tangible evidence that we are not alone in the universe. Tucked deep within the rock are what appear to be the chemical and fossil remains of microscopic organisms that lived on Mars 3.6 billion years...
...weakest and most controversial parts of the evidence, the panel of scientists at the press conference cited complex chemicals found close by or inside the carbonate globules. These included polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHS)--organic molecules that on Earth are formed when microorganisms die and decompose (but also when certain fossil fuels are burned)--and iron sulfides and magnetite, minerals that are often (but not necessarily) produced by living organisms...