An article published in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” describes a research on microfossil from the Pilbara Formation, Australia, dated about 3.496 billion years old. A team led by J. William Schopf, of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and John W. Valley, of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, subjected these microfossils to a very sophisticated examination concluding that they represent well-diversified species. Their deduction is that life on Earth must have been born much earlier and this suggests that it could be common in the universe.