Grab-and-go missions to asteroids have provided some of the most scientifically valuable samples since the Apollo ...

In a peer-reviewed analysis, scientists quantify amino acids before and after our “last universal common ancestor.” The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is the single life form that branched into ...

The origin of life on Earth becomes even more fascinating and complex as we peer into the mysterious world of viruses. Said to have existed since living cells first appeared, these microscopic ...

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 can animate life be formed from inanimate matter? It’s one of the most fascinating enigmas in science because, without this crucial first step, called abiogenesis, there would be no life on Earth.

On May 7, 1981, influential physicist Richard Feynman gave a keynote speech at Caltech. Feynman opened his talk by politely rejecting the very notion of a keynote speech, instead saying that he had ...

In many submerged regions, murky mud shelters strange life-forms that seem to be the key to one of the biggest mysteries of life on Earth. These creatures belong to a domain of life called the archaea ...