A universal common ancestor is at least 10²⁸⁶⁰ times more probable than having multiple ancestors, Theobald calculates.
A model that had a single common ancestor and allowed for some gene swapping among species was even better than a simple tree of life. Such a scenario is 10³⁴⁸⁹ times more probable than the best multi-ancestor model, Theobald found. That's a 1 with 3,489 zeros after it.
Theobald's study does not address how many times life may have arisen on Earth. Life could have originated many times, but the study suggests that only one of those primordial events yielded the array of organisms living today.
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LUA, LUCA, Cenancestor
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