An exciting discovery concerning the earliest form of life on Earth was announced in the news tonight, pushing back the ancestry of all life (including, of course, ourselves) to some 4.82 billion years ago, around the period of formation of the first oceans and way earlier than previously thought. The discovery of these microscopic, filamentous organisms is causing quite a stir as can well be imagined but there is no news yet on what they ate- (possibly one another as there was not much else around at the time and certainly no fast food outlets).
Apparently, a clue may lie in a tiny and poignant piece of graffiti, found scratched into the ancient rock in which the fossils were found, that reads:
‘It’s How Long to the invention of cheese? Don’t think I can hold out.......’