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 ...

Ancient duplicated genes are giving scientists their first real clues about what life was like before all life on Earth ...

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

For decades, many scientists have relied on the "hard steps" model to suggest that intelligent life is rare — the improbable result of a series of unlikely evolutionary leaps. But new research by ...

"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 ...

Researchers investigating the origin of complex life on Earth might have just made a major breakthrough. The origin of humanity and the planet Earth is probably debated more than whether the chicken ...

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 ...

Life on Earth is complex and hard to understand, but new research may have finally given us a much-needed glimpse into the patterns that life follows as it spreads across our planet. According to a ...

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 ...

The catastrophic impact of an asteroid 66 million years ago brought death and devastation on Earth—but also fascinating new ...

The Cambrian Explosion in which life on Earth underwent massive diversification was likely triggered by eccentricities in Earth’s orbit around our Sun. Or so say the authors of a new paper just ...