Icy waters of 'Snowball Earth' may have spurred early organisms to grow bigger

A new study from CU Boulder finds that hundreds of millions of years ago, small single-celled organisms may have evolved into larger multicellular life forms to better propel themselves through icy waters. Two fossils of Brooksella alternata [Credit: Glenn Asakawa/CU Boulder] The research was led by paleobiologist Carl Simpson and appears today in the journal The American Naturalist. It hones in on a question that's central to the history of the planet: How did life on Earth,...