Wooden You Know It?

Forest Sosnowica Poland by Sylwia Mazurek/PD

Wood has long provided mankind with construction material, fuel, enjoyable scenery, and shade. One of the most abundant biological products in the world, wood consists of the thickened cell wall deposits that provide support for branches and stems in trees and woody plants. Scientists recently described the oldest known example as "a simple type of wood," but just how "simple" is this material?

The study published in Science looked at fossilized wood found in rocks that are supposedly 10 million years older than the prior record-holder. The discovery of this substance in "Early Devonian plants was unexpected," the researchers wrote, presumably because wood is such a complicated biomolecule that it should have evolved later, not earlier.

Read the rest of "Earliest Fossil Shows Wood Could Not Evolve", Elroy.