The last common ancestor of all living things did not just suddenly appear on Earth roughly 4.2 billion years ago. Some of ...

When the first spark of life emerged on a young, ocean-covered Earth some four billion years ago, it didn’t happen at once. The process was slow and drawn out over eons, with lifeless chemicals slowly ...

Billions of years ago, Earth’s atmosphere was hostile, with barely any oxygen and toxic conditions for life. Researchers from the Earth-Life Science Institute studied Japan’s iron-rich hot springs, ...

It is the ultimate mystery of biology: How did life begin? A team of Harvard scientists has brought us closer to an answer by creating artificial cell-like chemical systems that simulate metabolism, ...

More than half a billion years ago on a frigid, ice-covered Earth, glaciers stirred up ingredients for complex life by bulldozing land minerals and then depositing them in the ocean, according to a ...

For decades, many scientists have relied on the "hard steps" model to suggest that intelligent life is rare — the improbable result of a series of unlikely evolutionary leaps. But new research by ...

Scientists have traced the origins of complex life to the breakup of the supercontinent Nuna 1.5 billion years ago. This tectonic shift reduced volcanic carbon emissions, expanded shallow seas, and ...

Questions about the origin and nature of Earth and the life on it have long preoccupied human thought and the scientific endeavor. Deciphering the planet's history and processes could improve the ...