God saw this:
Scientists prepare to move Doomsday Clock forward
Porpoises Starving in Europe Due to Ocean Warming
...and decided it's time to start the backup plan.
"...the divergence of this group from known organisms is as great as the difference between land plants and animals," Connie Lovejoy, a biologist at Universit Laval in Canada and another member of the research team, said in a statement.
Bizarre New Form of Life Found in Arctic Ocean, Scientists Announce
Kelly Hearn
for National Geographic News
January 11, 2007
An entirely new group of tiny and bizarre marine algae has been discovered in the Arctic Ocean.
A team of European researchers found the new organisms while analyzing DNA sequences in samples of seawater.
Genetic evidence pointed to the presence of an unknown type of microalgae, which the researchers named picobiliphytes ("pico" means "a trillionth of a part of") because of their miniscule size.
But the discovery may be huge—scientifically speaking.
"These organisms represent a new evolutionary lineage," said team member Fabrice Not. Not is a marine biologist at the Institut de Ciències del Mar, a part of Spain's National Research Council.
"The discovery didn't provide any sister relationship to any other groups of organisms known to date. It means that this new group is probably a high-rank taxon [group] in terms of classification," Not added—hinting at the huge amount of diversity in sea life.
"In fact, the divergence of this group from known organisms is as great as the difference between land plants and animals," Connie Lovejoy, a biologist at Universit Laval in Canada and another member of the research team, said in a statement.
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