In an investigation to find out what sparked life on Earth, researchers have discovered that RNA formed through surprisingly ...

The new findings strengthen the "RNA world" hypothesis that describes how the first life on Earth could have used RNA instead ...

Grab-and-go missions to asteroids have provided some of the most scientifically valuable samples since the Apollo ...

A breakthrough experiment, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers compelling support for ...

How did life begin on Earth? While scientists have theories, they don’t yet fully understand the precise chemical steps that ...

The mystery of life’s beginnings has long captivated scientists. Central to that search is LUCA—the last universal common ancestor. LUCA sits at the root of the evolutionary tree, where two great ...

Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. Why Trust Us? Here’s what you will learn when you read this story: Abiogenesis—the emergence of ...

It’s one of the most longstanding questions in biology: how did life first arise? Research on the topic abounds, but there’s no one accepted answer. And according to one new paper, the chances that ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. We’ve pieced together a remarkably detailed timeline of ...

Approximately four billion years ago, the first forms of life emerged on Earth. For eons, biological life consisted of prokaryotic organisms, either early bacteria or archaea. Determining when ...

NASA’s Mars rover finds organic signals in mudstone that resemble microbial activity, sparking new debate over life on the ...