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.
We still don't know just how the first life emerged on Earth. One suggestion is that the building blocks arrived here from space; now, a new study of several carbon-rich meteorites has added weight to this idea.
An incredible discovery has just revealed a potential new source for understanding life on ancient Earth.
A new research article sheds light on another way that supernovae support life. Supernova activity in Earth’s neighbourhood may have led to more oxygen in the atmosphere. And oxygen is necessary for complex life.
Lightning strikes were just as important as meteorites in creating the perfect conditions for life to emerge on Earth, according to new research. This shows that life could develop on Earth-like planets through the same mechanism.
According to a new study, 555-million-year-old oceanic creatures from the Ediacaran period share genes with today's animals, including humans.
According to a recent study, if planets with similar conditions and evolutionary time lines to Earth are common, then life should have little problem spontaneously emerging on other planets and the odds are 3:2
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 discovery of Metallosphaera sedula - the bacteria that eats meteorites not only invites speculation on how terrestrial life could survive off world, it offers insight into how early biology could have received key nutrients through space rocks.
We get excited when we detect water on another world, which so far hasn’t happened often. But this study shows that the presence of water, though tantalizing and worth pursuing scientifically, guarantees nothing.
Largest documented asteroid breakup in the asteroid belt during the past two billion years caused enormous amounts of dust to spread through the solar system. The blocking effect of this dust lead to cooler temperatures which in turn caused diversification.
New computational analysis finds that more than two dozen human zinc finger transcription factors, previously thought to control activity of similar genes across species have in fact human-specific roles and could help explain the evolution.
A research into how life evolved on Earth has shown that water alone does not guarantee life – nor does the presence of oxygen gas. And that two other major biosignatures, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide could be needed.
A team of scientists has re-created some of the first steps of life in the lab, testing whether life could emerge on other ocean worlds.
The preservation of trace fossils, suggests that multicellular organisms that could move around to reach food resources may already have existed 2.1 billion years ago, more than 1.5 billion years older than previously thought.
