Four billion years ago, Earth was violent, hot, and unstable. Yet new research suggests that by then, life had already reached a surprising level of complexity. At that time lived the last universal ...

A split-second stall at the start of genes may explain how complex animals evolved, according to the Cornell Chronicle. Researchers found that a brief “pause” in gene activity grew stronger and more ...

Here’s a fun (and creepy) fact: The Earth is home to approximately 20 quadrillion ants. To put zeroes on it, that’s around 20,000,000,000,000,000 of the six-legged insects living all around us. How ...

Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses? The famous question, though implausible, reflects a ...

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

The researchers think the pattern they observed in ants reflects a more universal trend in the evolution of societal ...

Ocean hypoxia and microplastics are interconnected crises, intensifying each other and threatening marine ecosystems and ...

At the microscopic edge of biology, researchers have uncovered an organism so stripped down that it forces a rethink of what ...

Autophagy is the cellular equivalent of a housekeeping system. When operating correctly, it eliminates damaged proteins, ...

The tiny pantheon known as the Asgard archaea bear traits that hint at how plants, animals and fungi emerged on Earth.

At a steaming creek in California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park, a tiny amoeba just raised the heat ceiling for complex ...

Complex life began to develop earlier, and over a longer span of time, than previously believed, a groundbreaking new study has revealed. The research sheds new light on the conditions needed for ...