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

Every organism alive on Earth, from oak trees to octopuses to the bacteria in our gut, belongs to a single extended family. Genetic evidence points back to one ancestral cell, a last common forebear ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. NASA astronauts took this ...

New method reveals chemical signs of early microbial life in ancient Earth rocks, showing photosynthesis evolved much earlier than believed.

Before sunlight ever reached the planet, another force may have sparked life—electricity. Deep beneath the ocean floor, ancient hydrothermal vents might have generated natural electric fields strong ...

How did life begin on Earth? While scientists have theories, they don't yet fully understand the precise chemical steps that led to biology, or when the first primitive life forms appeared. But what ...

Ancient evidence suggests a new twist in how we all got here.

Samples from the asteroid Bennu hint that some of life’s ingredients were forming long before Earth existed. NASA’s ...

How did life begin on Earth? While scientists have theories, they don’t yet fully understand the precise chemical steps that led to biology or when the first primitive life forms appeared. But what if ...

Seán Jordan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...