Nitrogen, upon which all life on Earth depends, may hold the key for explaining how early life on the planet evolved and how it could evolve on other planets.

Our planet is unique for its ability to sustain abundant life. From studies of the rock record, scientists believe life had already emerged on Earth at least 3.5 billion years ago and probably much ...

New method reveals chemical signs of early microbial life in ancient Earth rocks, showing photosynthesis evolved much earlier than believed.

By resurrecting a 3.2-billion-year-old enzyme and studying it inside living microbes, researchers at the University of ...

How did life begin on Earth? While scientists have theories, they don't yet fully understand the precise chemical steps that led to biology, or when the first primitive life forms appeared. Subscribe ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. All life on Earth can be traced back to a Last Universal Common Ancestor, or LUCA. A study suggests that this organism likely ...

Introduction : The coherence of history / Stephen Jay Gould -- The planetary setting of prebiotic evolution / Sherwood Chang -- Early environments : constraints and opportunities for early evolution / ...

The question of when life began on Earth is as old as human culture. “It’s one of these fundamental human questions: When did life appear on Earth?” said Professor Martin Whitehouse of the Swedish ...

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, possesses a thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere that bears striking similarities to that of early Earth. Scientists are fascinated by Titan’s atmospheric composition and its ...

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: All life on Earth can be traced back to a Last ...

How did life begin on Earth? While scientists have theories, they don’t yet fully understand the precise chemical steps that led to biology or when the first primitive life forms appeared. But what if ...