Recently scientists have discovered one plausible pathway for how protocells may have first formed and chemically progressed to allow for a diversity of functions.
Does life appear independently on different planets in the galaxy? Or does it spread from world to world? Or does it do both? New research shows how life could spread via a basic, simple pathway: cosmic dust.
The research team investigated how the emergence of the first living systems from inert geological materials happened on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago.
U.S. scientists argue that chance alone cannot consistently produce the highly complex molecules found in all living creatures. To produce billions of copies of intricate objects like proteins, human hands, or iPhones, the universe needs a 'memory'.
How life emerged on Earth from an assortment of non-living molecules is a stubbornly enduring mystery but now we could have some more clues thanks to a recent study.
An incredible discovery has just revealed a potential new source for understanding life on ancient Earth.
When Chilean scientist Osvaldo Ulloa led an expedition 8,000 meters under the sea to an area where no human had ever been, his team discovered microscopic organisms that generated more questions than answers.
The Cambrian Explosion - around 541 million years ago - was when life and organisms really got going on planet Earth. Now new research has revealed how that explosion of life has left behind traces deep within Earth's mantle.
According to a new study, 555-million-year-old oceanic creatures from the Ediacaran period share genes with today's animals, including humans.
When the asteroid struck our planet some 66 mil years ago, it created a 180-km impact crater and produced a gigantic magma chamber. A new research found that this hydrothermal system supported an entire microbial ecosystem.
New research identifies a process that might have been key in producing the first organic molecules on Earth about 4 billion years ago, before the origin of life. The process may also have relevance to the life elsewhere in the universe.
It's calculated that, thanks to rapid inflation, the universe may contain more than 1 googol (10^100) stars, and if this is the case then more complex, life-sustaining RNA structures are more than just probable, they're practically inevitable.
The title of Earth’s Earliest Life has been returned to the fossils in the Pilbara region of Australia. A new study of the Pilbara fossils has identified the presence of preserved organic matter in those fossils.
Researchers have found among the first and perhaps only hard evidence that simple protein catalysts - essential for cells, the building blocks of life, to function - may have existed when life began.
According to a recent study, space dust could be what brought life molecules to Earth. This same mechanism could be responsible for the distribution of life throughout the Universe.
