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 ...

The origin of life on Earth has been mulled over by scientists for centuries. We now know that life’s building blocks are RNA, amino acids, and cells. But if life originated from the primordial ooze ...

Two enormous structures that sit at the border between the Earth's mantle and its core have puzzled scientists for decades.

A chemical compound essential to all living things has been synthesized in a lab in conditions that could have occurred on early Earth, suggesting it played a role at the outset of life. A chemical ...

Two perplexing structures deep inside Earth might be ancient remnants of our early planet, and they could hold clues about ...

The origin of life on Earth has always been a mystery. For many years, scientists have looked to the stars, believing that the building blocks of life that set forth evolution here on our planet came ...

How can animate life be formed from inanimate matter? It’s one of the most fascinating enigmas in science because, without this crucial first step, called abiogenesis, there would be no life on Earth.

Two of the most intriguing questions in science are: How did life on Earth begin? and Is there life elsewhere in the universe? Given the enormous interest in these questions, you might expect that the ...

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A team of scientists has discovered a new abiotic pathway for the formation of peptide chains from amino acids -- a key chemical step in the origin of life. The current study provides strong evidence ...

Leading theories suggest that the first energy used by life was either from the sun or from geothermal heat and chemistry at the bottom of the ocean. When you purchase through links on our site, we ...