Life may have emerged from a surprisingly simple network of chemical reactions long before cells or genes existed.

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

The origin of life on Earth dates back billions of years, and it is believed to have started with something very small and primitive but nobody has ever witnessed that first spark. Scientists have ...

A new study published in July 2025 tackles one of science's most profound mysteries—how did life first emerge from nonliving matter on early Earth? Using cutting edge mathematical approaches, ...

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 ...

The origin of life on Earth has been mulled over by scientists for centuries. We now know that life’s building blocks are RNA, amino acids, and cells. But if life originated from the primordial ooze ...

How life evolved is one of the central questions in science and has fascinated humans for centuries. Early Earth was undoubtedly a harsh environment, but we know surprisingly little about the ...

A team from the University of Illinois has uncovered surprising evolutionary links between the genetic code and tiny protein fragments called dipeptides. By analyzing billions of dipeptide sequences ...

How did the building blocks of life come together to spawn the first organisms? It’s one of the most longstanding questions in biology — and scientists just got a major clue. In a new study published ...

University of Alberta geochemists have discovered a missing piece to one of the great mysteries of science—the origin of life on Earth. That fateful spark is believed to have occurred on the ocean's ...