Living organisms share an ancestor called the last universal common ancestor, or LUCA. LUCA is estimated to have lived ...

Two separate laboratory breakthroughs have produced RNA molecules that can build copies of themselves or assemble functional structures without any help from proteins or DNA. These results offer the ...

New scientific theory based on ancient proteins suggests that genes did not arise as we believed and that life could have started elsewhere.

Scientists propose that eukaryotes formed when an Asgard archaeon entered into a close partnership with an alphaproteobacterium. Over time, the two organisms became permanently linked. The ...

A doctoral student recreated a tiny piece of the universe in a bottle to investigate the chemistry that led to life on Earth.

The earliest days of Earth held secrets that scientists are still trying to uncover. One of the greatest mysteries is how life began. A key part of the answer lies in a rare element: phosphorus. This ...

A Sydney Ph.D. student has recreated a tiny piece of the universe inside a bottle in her laboratory, producing cosmic dust from scratch. The results shed new light on how the chemical building blocks ...

The mystery of how life on Earth originated , and whether it exists elsewhere in the universe, are "the raison d’être of space exploration", said Louis Friedman, co-founder of the Planetary Society.

For decades, experts have tried to explain how simple cells evolved into the complex organisms that make up plants, animals ...

Life may have started in sticky, rock-hugging gels rather than inside cells. Researchers suggest these primitive, biofilm-like materials could trap and concentrate molecules, giving early chemistry a ...