To find out if we are alone in the galaxy, we will need to better understand what geochemical conditions nurtured the first life forms. What water, chemistry and temperature cycles fostered the ...

What is the true longest-living life-form? Tortoises, whales, and trees are all likely to be the winners. However, some microscopic species are the answer for this. They have been alive since befo ...

The first multicelled animals appeared in the fossil record almost 600 million years ago. Known as the Ediacarans, these bizarre creatures bore little resemblance to modern life-forms. They grew ...

we’re still not sure exactly how our planet’s first life forms were created. It’s possible, many scientists say, that life on Earth may have originated elsewhere. Right now, the leading ...

If the first life forms on Earth were not bound by a preference for “left-handed” amino acids and “right-handed” sugars, then the molecular structures of early life could have been much ...

Fungi were some of the first complex life forms on land, mining rocks for mineral nourishment, slowly turning them into what would become soil. In the Late Ordovician era, they formed a symbiotic ...

From 4.6 billion years ago when the Earth was red hot, the timeline illustrates the evolution of the first life forms through to plants photosynthesising, bacterial evolution, marine life ...

A team of international researchers has challenged the long-held belief that complex life forms first emerged on Earth 635 million years ago, presenting findings that show life may have existed ...

First, he had traced the evolution of cellular ... biologists used the sequences of multiple genomes of diverse life-forms to construct and compare thousands of phylogenetic trees for individual ...

Before plants ruled, Earth may have glowed violet. The first life forms used retinal instead of chlorophyll, absorbing green light and reflecting red and blue—turning the planet an eerie purple.