The New Scientist has always astounded me with the kinds of things it produces. Many scoff it as a non-credible news source; other praise it for its merriment. I cannot help but wonder what they are doing with their headlines these days. "Darwin was wrong" was a controversial front page, with an article not really proving that: it merely pointed out that instead of a tree of life, it's more a web of life, which allows for cross-species breeding by transferral of genetic material. His theory of evolution still very much stands. I am also saying that from memory, so I might be slightly off with that, but the general gist is still there.
I cannot remember other headlines now, but this one did catch my eye: "Life began with a planetary mega-organism". To be honest, I originally read that as "orgasm", which is why I clicked the link in the first place. Year 10 reading skills to one side, the article itself is not very convincing. The article states that the seas and oceans initially contained a vast mass of cells and metabolites and genetic information was freely swapped amongst these. According to the article, this effectively created a mega-organism. I learned MRS NERG in school.
All in all, I'd say this is tentative, and definitely needs padding out before they award the discoverer, Gustavo Caetano-Anollés, a Nobel Prize. To paraphrase Eric Alm of MIT, "It's plausible - but I honestly can't tell if it's true". However, it would be very cool if it were!