A 3-D thermal model identifies a ~ 4.33 Ga temporal “sweet spot” for life’s origin, when decreased bombardment enabled mild hydrothermal niches to support RNA World chemistry and stable biomolecule ...

There is still so much we don't understand about the origin of life on Earth. The definition of life itself is a source of debate among scientists, but most researchers agree on the fundamental ...

Where did it start? How did it grow complex? Why did it get big? Three moments in Earth’s early history when evolution ...

Producers, consumers, and decomposers play different roles in today's ecosystems. Thinking about these familiar roles led me ...

A recent paper in Nature Communications from researchers at UCLA and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, offers new insight into the mystery of life. Previous experiments focused on existing molecular ...

A scrappy science project led to a significant discovery: two new species of a rare organism that could elucidate a fundamental transition in the history of life on our planet.

The special issue of Astrobiology explores how life may have begun in chemically dynamic environments on land, perhaps similar to the hot springs that can be seen in Yellowstone National Park. For ...

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 ...

When a bone grows, our bodies’ proteins help provide the structure. When a muscle tears, proteins help rebuild it. When we fight an infection, transport oxygen in our blood or send messages to a cell, ...

The top-down study of life’s origin—via the examination of ancient fossils—doesn’t tell us much about early biochemistry. Fossil cells, molecules, and isotopes are indistinguishable from those of ...

A recent scientific study is challenging one of the most established ideas about how life first developed on Earth. Researchers from the University of Arizona suggest that the earliest stages of ...

Scientists unlock a groundbreaking discovery about the origins of life with absorption, fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy.