The work challenges the assumption that all life descended from one free-living cell. Instead, it suggests that two microbial ...

How and where did the first forms of life arise? These are the main questions driving research at the Institute of Molecular ...

Scientists probing life’s deepest origins have uncovered evidence that the first free-living cells may have emerged not once, but twice. The findings suggest a striking possibility: life may share one ...

Fatty acids and hydroxy acids — two of the simplest molecules scientists believe were abundant on early Earth — chemically reinforce each other when joined by a covalent bond, forming primitive ...

A popular model of evolution concludes that it was incredibly unlikely for humanity to evolve on Earth, and that extraterrestrial intelligence is vanishingly rare. But as experts on the entangled ...

In many submerged regions, murky mud shelters strange life-forms that seem to be the key to one of the biggest mysteries of life on Earth. These creatures belong to a domain of life called the archaea ...

A four-carbon sugar discovered 26,000 light-years away may explain how DNA's backbone arrived on Earth.

How life evolved is one of the central questions in science and has fascinated humans for centuries. Early Earth was undoubtedly a harsh environment, but we know surprisingly little about the ...

Billions of years of evolution have made modern cells incredibly complex. Inside cells are small compartments called organelles that perform specific functions essential for the cell’s survival and ...

Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. Why Trust Us? Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: A peer-reviewed analysis ...