Let there be life: New evidence for the oldest oxygen-breathing life on land
New University of Alberta research shows the first evidence that oxygen-breathing bacteria occupied and thrived on land 100 million years earlier than previously thought.
The...
Pumice proposed as home to the first life forms
The glassy, porous, and once gas-rich rock called pumice may have given rise to early life forms, according to a provocative new hypothesis on...
Last Universal Common Ancestor more complex than previously thought
Scientists call it LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor, but they don't know much about this great-grandparent of all living things. Many believe LUCA...
Evidence for a persistently iron-rich ocean changes views on Earth’s early history
Over the last half a billion years, the ocean has mostly been full of oxygen and teeming with animal life. But earlier, before animals...
World’s oldest fossils show sulfur-based microbes lived 3.4 billion years ago
Earth's oldest fossils have been found in Australia and researchers say their microscopic discovery is convincing evidence that cells and bacteria were able to...
Can life evolve from a different chemical code?
All life on Earth relies on a standard set of 20 molecules called amino acids to build the proteins that carry out life's essential...
