Scientists provide fresh insights on the origins of life, presenting compelling evidence supporting the 'RNA World' hypothesis. The study unveils an RNA enzyme that can make accurate copies of other ...

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 ...

In a world where evolutionary biology often gets boiled down to simplistic hierarchies of "primitive" and "advanced" species, a new book by University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) biologist ...

Humans like to think that being multicellular (and bigger) is a definite advantage, even though 80% of life on Earth consists of single-celled organisms—some thriving in conditions lethal to any beast ...

Evolution is perhaps the most extraordinary story ever told—a tale spanning billions of years that connects every living thing on Earth through an intricate web of shared ancestry. From the tiniest ...

All life on Earth shares a common ancestor that lived roughly four billion years ago. This so-called “last universal common ancestor” represents the most ancient organism that researchers can study.

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. — Humans might not be walking on Earth today if not for the ancient fusing of two microscopic, single-celled organisms called prokaryotes, NASA-funded research has found. By ...

Earth’s surface is the living skin of our planet – it connects the physical, chemical and biological systems. Over geological time, this surface evolves. Rivers fragment the landscape into an ...

I watch Rufus, a friend’s dog, chew enthusiastically on a rubber bone. I know the dog is alive, and his toy is not. I know that intuitively. But can I prove it scientifically? Can science parse the ...

Six animals pulled from the deep ocean were so biologically distinct that researchers had to create entirely new taxonomic ranks to classify them, from a new order of sponges to a new supergroup of ...