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 ...

Scientists discovered a 400-million-year-old fossil known as Prototaxites, which does not belong to any known life form ...

Analysis of one Prototaxites species showed that its physical and chemical characteristics were not only different from those of any existing fungus—the didn’t match any existing organism at all.

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 ...

Chemical analysis suggests the 400-million-year-old fossil Prototaxites was neither plant, animal or fungus – hinting at a mysterious life form that went extinct long ago ...

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 ...

These mysterious forms, first identified through cutting-edge genetic analysis, challenge existing definitions of life and ...

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 ...

How do scientists diagram evolutionary relationships? Scientists represent evolutionary relationships with tree diagrams (also called cladograms) because new life forms appear the way new branches ...

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 ...