About 700 million years ago, enormous glaciers flowed across the Earth's surface in powerful frozen rivers like "giant ice bulldozers" that pulverized our planet's crust and may have contributed to ...

Laboratory chemists are now edging closer to the moment when lifeless molecules first organized into the chemistry that would eventually support complex organisms. By recreating key early-Earth ...

Early Mars seems to have had a protective atmosphere and liquid water in the form of oceans, rivers, and lakes. It may also ...

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." All life on Earth can be traced back to a Last Universal Common Ancestor, or LUCA. A new study suggests ...

Life on Earth began simply. For billions of years, tiny microbes ruled the planet. Then, one day in deep time, something changed. Cells gained a nucleus, built inner compartments and learned to ...

Oxygen played a key role in the evolution of complex organisms, according to new research published in BMC Evolutionary Biology. The study shows that the complexity of life forms increased earlier ...

Scientists have discovered evidence that an isolated pocket of complex life may have evolved on Earth more than 2 billion years ago – only to go extinct and take another 1.5 billion years to evolve to ...

Researchers have laid out the case for complex life evolving 2.1 billion years ago, but not everyone is convinced it started so early. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an ...

A dense Arctic bonebed shows marine life and ocean food webs recovered far faster than scientists once believed after mass ...

A new study explores how complex chemical mixtures change under shifting environmental conditions, shedding light on the prebiotic processes that may have led to life. By exposing organic molecules to ...