Our planet is unique for its ability to sustain abundant life. From studies of the rock record, scientists believe life had already emerged on Earth at least 3.5 billion years ago and probably much ...

The origin of the first living molecules on our planet has long been debated. However, recent experiments are revealing new information about the plausible conditions on the early Earth.

“Microlightning” exchanges among water droplets could have sparked the building blocks of life on ancient Earth, new research finds. Here, a wave breaks on White Sand Beach on the Thai island of Koh ...

The origin of life is surely one of the most important questions in biology. How did inanimate molecules give rise to the ...

Researchers report that frozen hydrogen cyanide crystals can enable highly reactive chemistry at low temperatures.

Deep-sea sediment layers show rare microbial wrinkle structures that formed in environments far beyond the reach of sunlight. Dr. Rowan Martindale, a paleoecologist and geobiologist at the University ...

New experiments suggest RNA, life’s essential molecule, could have formed naturally on early Earth and even arrived from space, raising intriguing questions about how easily life might begin elsewhere ...

Researchers in the field of synthetic biology are still a long way from being able to assemble living cells from scratch in the laboratory. But according to biochemist David Deamer of the University ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft spent two years observing the asteroid Bennu before it collected a ...

A substance poisonous to humans—hydrogen cyanide—may have helped create the seeds of life on Earth. At cold temperatures, ...