Ancient microbes tied to our earliest ancestors could use oxygen, reshaping ideas about how complex life began on Earth.

Living organisms share an ancestor called the last universal common ancestor, or LUCA. LUCA is estimated to have lived ...

In the oceans and on land, scientists are discovering rare, transitional organisms that bridge the gap between Earth’s simplest cells and today’s complex ones.

For decades, experts have tried to explain how simple cells evolved into the complex organisms that make up plants, animals ...

A giant virus discovered in Japan is adding fuel to the provocative idea that viruses helped create complex life. Named ushikuvirus, it infects amoebae and shows unique traits that connect different ...

Stentor coeruleus is a giant unicellular, filter-feeding protist that uses the coordinated motion of its oral ciliary structure to generate feeding currents. These currents allow the organism to ...

At some point during the evolution of life on Earth, inorganic matter became organic, nonliving matter became living. How this happened is one of humankind's greatest mysteries. Today, scientists work ...

Ben Woodcroft receives funding from the ARC. Adrián A. Davín does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has ...

Mono Lake, tucked in the Eastern Sierra, is no ordinary lake. Its eerie tufa towers and teeming swarms of brine shrimp and alkali flies make it a hotspot for life that thrives where others can’t. The ...

Centromeres play virtually the same central role across the entire tree of life: They ensure the faithful segregation of chromosomes during cell division. Yet the striking diversity in centromere ...

Some of the greatest evolutionary biologists of the 20th century famously dismissed the prospect of humanlike intelligence beyond Earth. Elen11 Elen11/Getty Editor’s note: The Focus on Research column ...