Learning about the past is usually easier than predicting the future, but deciphering the earliest history of life on Earth seems to be an exception to the rule. Of course, we're not entirely in the ...

The emergence of the first biopolymers and their building blocks on the early Earth is considered a key moment in the origin of life (OoL), but how life began on the prebiotic Earth from a pile of ...

Researchers propose that tiny mineral nanoparticles may have been the hidden engines that transformed Earth’s early chemistry into the first building blocks of life. By acting as natural catalysts and ...

How did life begin on Earth? While scientists have theories, they don't yet fully understand the precise chemical steps that led to biology, or when the first primitive life forms appeared. But what ...

The special issue of Astrobiology explores how life may have begun in chemically dynamic environments on land, perhaps similar to the hot springs that can be seen in Yellowstone National Park. For ...

A study found methane from future lunar landings could spread across the Moon and contaminate ancient ice deposits that may ...

In 1944, Erwin Schrödinger published a book called What Is Life?. The physicist, famous for his alive-and-dead cat, clearly relished a brainteaser. Today, there is still no good definition. Life is ...

In every cell of your body, there are mysterious speckles. You need a microscope to see them, but if you peer closely, you will see lots of tiny dots: some sitting still, some moving around as if ...

Meteor impacts may have helped spark life on Earth, creating hot, chemical-rich environments where the first living cells could take shape, according to research integrated by a recent Rutgers ...