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 ...

How did early cells keep themselves distinct while allowing for some amount of exchange? UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering/Peter Allen, Second Bay Studios, CC BY-ND Billions of years ...

The earliest forms of animal life on our planet continue to fascinate scientists, who are seeking to unravel the mystery of their origins. A team of geochemists from MIT recently provided new clues by ...

Ancient enzymes show life’s nitrogen signal stayed unchanged for billions of years, helping scientists read early Earth.

India, Feb. 9 -- Oxygen is a vital and constant presence on Earth today. But that hasn't always been the case. It wasn't until around 2.3 billion years ago that oxygen became a permanent fixture in ...

The atmosphere, the ocean and life on Earth interacted over the past 500-plus million years in ways that improved conditions for early organisms to thrive. Now, an interdisciplinary team of scientists ...

Aerobic respiration began hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought, a new study suggests.

Billions of years of evolution have made modern cells incredibly complex. Inside cells are small compartments called organelles that perform specific functions essential for the cell’s survival and ...