New evidence from rocks, molecules and machine learning is forcing scientists to redraw the opening chapters of Earth’s story, pushing the first stirrings of biology far closer to the planet’s violent ...

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." All life on Earth can be traced back to a Last Universal Common Ancestor, or LUCA. A new study suggests ...

The timeline of terrestrial evolution holds surprises. While scientists thought complex life required oxygen, a recent discovery shows it began forming in oceans deprived of this element, nearly a ...

Life on Earth began simply. For billions of years, tiny microbes ruled the planet. Then, one day in deep time, something changed. Cells gained a nucleus, built inner compartments and learned to ...

Approximately four billion years ago, the first forms of life emerged on Earth. For eons, biological life consisted of prokaryotic organisms, either early bacteria or archaea. Determining when ...

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: All life on Earth can be traced back to a Last ...

The team has proposed a new evidence-based scenario for the emergence of complex life they have called ‘CALM’ - Complex Archaeon, Late Mitochondrion. Complex life began to develop earlier, and over a ...

The research led by the University of Bristol was published in the scientific journal Nature 3 December, the research indicates that complex organisms evolved long before there were substantial levels ...