Oxygen played a key role in the evolution of complex organisms, according to new research published in BMC Evolutionary Biology. The study shows that the complexity of life forms increased earlier ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Far from being solo operators, most single-celled microbes are in complex relationships. In the ocean, the soil, and your gut, they ...

The timeline of terrestrial evolution holds surprises. While scientists thought complex life required oxygen, a recent discovery shows it began forming in oceans deprived of this element, nearly a ...

Around 700 million years ago, Earth was a frozen, white sphere, its rocky surface buried kilometers under ice. Despite the barren landscape, the evolution of complex life in the oceans was about to ...

A microscopic creature from a boiling hot spring in Northern California has just reset the upper limit for how hot complex ...

Updated models suggest only 60,000 to 250,000 Earth-like habitats may exist in the Galaxy, with far fewer capable of ...

Humans have it. So does Drosophila. But not yeast. That "it" is a small pause at the start of gene activity—a brief molecular ...

Over 500 million years ago, during the Cambrian period, all major animal phyla appeared rapidly in what is known as the Cambrian explosion, which established a completely new Earth-life system. This ...

The evolution of complex life is strictly dependent on mitochondria, the tiny power stations found in all complex cells, according to a new study by Dr Nick Lane, from UCL (University College London), ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Once upon a time, long ago, the world was encased in ice. That’s the tale told by sedimentary rock in the tropics, many geologists ...