Experiment may help explain the ‘most intriguing causal paradox in biology’ about how early life forms came together about 4 ...

All life on Earth can be traced back to a Last Universal Common Ancestor, or LUCA—and it likely lived on Earth only 400 ...

Chemists at University College London have shown how two of biology's most fundamental ingredients, RNA (ribonucleic acid) ...

When a bone grows, our bodies’ proteins help provide the structure. When a muscle tears, proteins help rebuild it. When we ...

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, possesses a thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere that bears striking similarities to that of early Earth. Scientists are fascinated by Titan’s atmospheric composition and its ...

Just like today, early life on Earth was therefore dependent on nitrogen fixation by microbes. In other words, on their conversion of atmospheric nitrogen into nitrogen compounds that living ...

Earth is so far the only known planet on which life exists—with liquid water and a stable atmosphere. However, the conditions ...

Space rocks larger in diameter than Utah bombarded the early Earth, probably repeatedly eradicating emerging life on the planet’s surface. The last of these death rocks struck around 4.3 billion ...

The Earth’s climate was far cooler – perhaps more than 50 degrees – billions of years ago, which could mean conditions for life all over the planet were more conducive than previously ...

This also shows that life could develop on Earth-like planets through the same mechanism at any time. Lightning strikes could have sparked life on the early Earth, a new study suggests.

A single enzyme found in early single-cell life forms could explain why oxygen levels in the atmosphere remained low for two billion years during the Proterozoic eon, preventing life colonizing land.

Life on Earth either started with a bang or it suffered an unusually rocky childhood, a new study suggests. Analyzing lunar meteorites, researchers have found new evidence that a swarm of debris ...