Oxygen-Free Animals Don't Exist After All

In 2010 a group of scientists announced that they’d found evidence of multi-cellular life in hyper-salty, oxygen-free pools at the bottom of the ocean. A new study indicates that what they thought were living animals were actually corpses taken over by bacterial “body-snatchers.”  Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have published a paper in BMC Biology that dashes the hopes of biologists on Earth and those who hope to find life in extreme conditions on other planets. Their findings cast doubt on whether or not metazoans can ever live entirely without oxygen.

http://tinyurl.com/heuogmq

Big Animals Poop Out, Study Of Daring Doo

Once upon a time, giant mammoths roamed Earth and the oceans teemed with great whales. These creatures ate massive quantities of food and deposited equally massive quantities of poop. A new study shows that these big animals and others like them, along with vast flocks of seabirds, schools of migrating fish, and herds of grazing animals, played a more vital role in keeping the planet fertile than previously believed.

http://tinyurl.com/hrbc6eu