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 ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: In a peer-reviewed analysis, scientists quantify amino acids before and after our “last universal common ancestor.” The last universal common ...

When a bone grows, our bodies’ proteins help provide the structure. When a muscle tears, proteins help rebuild it. When we fight an infection, transport oxygen in our blood or send messages to a cell, ...

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Two of the most intriguing questions in science are: How did life on Earth begin? and Is there life elsewhere in the universe? Given the enormous interest in these questions, you might expect that the ...

One of the most elegant theories about the origins of life on our planet is that it was kick-started by a delivery from outer space. This idea suggests that prebiotic molecules—the building blocks of ...

In the spring of 2023, an expedition of scientists got closer to making a Journey to the Center of the Earth than ever before. Aboard the ocean-drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution, they took a ...

Breathe easy. It appears our microbial ancestors used oxygen, too. In December 2025, Brett Baker led a research cruise to collect microbial genomes off the coast of Uruguay. In this photo, Tyler Smith ...

In a new book, physicist Sara Walker argues that assembly theory can explain what life is, and even help scientists create new forms of it. Sara Walker, a physicist at Arizona State University, says ...

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New experiments suggest that freezing and thawing on early Earth may have helped primitive cell-like structures grow and ...

I watch Rufus, a friend’s dog, chew enthusiastically on a rubber bone. I know the dog is alive, and his toy is not. I know that intuitively. But can I prove it scientifically? Can science parse the ...