Something written in every biology textbook of the past 70 years may need a rewrite. Not because the science was careless, or the scientists were wrong to try – but because the tools available at the ...

In an important new paper forthcoming in the June issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology, Robert Shapiro (New York University) argues against the widely held theory that the origin of life began ...

Researchers in the field of synthetic biology are still a long way from being able to assemble living cells from scratch in the laboratory. But according to biochemist David Deamer of the University ...

What were the first life forms like? In a new perspective article, scientists describe a strategy for answering this question by studying the earliest evolution of electron transport chains, a ...

A carbon atom can form four single bonds. Graphic: Carbon with four bonds in 3D. In three dimensions, these four bonds are arranged tetrahedrally. Graphic: Tetrahedral bond arrangement. Which means ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft spent two years observing the asteroid Bennu before it collected a ...

Earth’s chemical energy powered early life through ‘the most revolutionary idea in biology since Darwin’ For 80 years it has been accepted that early life began in a ‘primordial soup’ of organic ...

In a new book, astrophysicist Mario Livio describes how the existence of life on Earth can be traced back to an RNA-based “protocell.” The following is an excerpt from Is Earth Exceptional?: The Quest ...

Wherever you are reading this, look around you. Every living thing you can see – other people, pets, birds flying past, trees, flowers, mushrooms, fish – is here because of unions between different ...