The tiny pantheon known as the Asgard archaea bear traits that hint at how plants, animals and fungi emerged on Earth.

The discovery marks a significant moment for a theory that was once dismissed as fringe science but is now gaining serious scientific traction. Panspermia is far from a modern invention. The concept ...

The question of how life began has captivated humanity for millennia. Now, a team of scientists are preparing to use NASA's upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) to test different theories about ...

In a peer-reviewed analysis, scientists quantify amino acids before and after our “last universal common ancestor.” The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is the single life form that branched into ...

We often wonder whether there are aliens on other planets but what if we ourselves are aliens on the planet we call home? Panspermia, the “controversial” theory that life “began elsewhere in space” ...

Two enormous structures that sit at the border between the Earth’s mantle and its core have puzzled scientists for decades, defying reigning theories of how our planet came to be. In a new study ...

How did life begin? An international team of researchers from Japan, Malaysia, the UK, and Germany suggest that the answer may lie in sticky, surface-bound gels that existed long before the first ...

In a new book, astrophysicist Mario Livio describes how the existence of life on Earth can be traced back to an RNA-based “protocell.” The following is an excerpt from Is Earth Exceptional?: The Quest ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Humanity’s understanding of life was forever altered when ...