"By following universal paralogs," says Kaçar, "we can connect the earliest steps of life on Earth to the tools of modern ...

If life exists elsewhere in the universe, researchers at the University of Washington are finding the clues on Earth to help ...

The new plot twist is that in order to keep enough nitrogen and phosphorus near its surface, a planet has to start out with ...

Life’s story may stretch further back than scientists once thought. Some genes found in nearly every organism today were already duplicated before all life shared a common ancestor. By tracking these ...

Scientists have spent decades cataloging life on Earth’s surface, from rainforest canopies to ocean trenches. But a growing body of research now shows that a vast, hidden biosphere thrives kilometers ...

The Earth's magnetic field and oxygen evolved together over 540 million years, according to a major NASA study.

As much as 45 oceans’ worth of hydrogen may be in Earth’s core, scientists reported, suggesting most of Earth’s water was ...

Ancient microbes tied to our earliest ancestors could use oxygen, reshaping ideas about how complex life began on Earth.

Scientists have many theories about how Earth's raw materials turned into living cells, but a new proposal is particularly slimy. In a recent paper, an international team argues that life may have ...

Earth-like atmospheres require precise balances of nitrogen, oxygen, and CO₂, supported by long-term geological and biological processes. Most M-dwarf planets face atmospheric loss due to intense ...

Ancient fossils are revealing unexpected chemical survivors, challenging long-held assumptions about how biological carbon is ...