origins of life

Researchers engineered strands of RNA that can link amino acids together, suggesting a way that RNA and proteins may have emerged together to create the earliest forms of life.

The discovery could add weight to the hypothesis that the building blocks of life on Earth originally came from space, but some scientists note the possibility of contamination.

The material, now part of an African mountain range, bolsters the idea that hydrothermal veins supported early forms of life.

Meet some of the people featured in the November 2020 issue of The Scientist.

A new study finds mixtures of nucleotide types, rather than pure systems, are more likely to yield the building blocks of life.

What we can know about biology before the last universal common ancestor is limited—and we should be circumspect in filling in the gaps.

In audio files from 2005, the future Administrator of the EPA said there’s a lack of “sufficient scientific facts” to back the theory.

Reactions that generate fundamental components of the cell run smoothly in microdroplets, study shows.

Embedded within 3.95-billion-year-old rock, scientists have found graphite with a carbon signature that indicates biological activity.

A newly discovered superphylum of archaea may be related to a microbe that engulfed a bacterium to give rise to complex eukaryotic life.

Researchers show how RNA bases could self-assemble in conditions that might resemble Earth’s primordial soup.

Harold Morowitz, who dedicated his career to investigating the origins of life, has passed away at age 88.

A new estimate of the origin of life on Earth pushes back the date by 300 million years.

New research points to key properties of transfer RNA molecules and amino acids that may have supported the origin of life on Earth.

Mathematical and computational approaches are making strides in understanding how life might have emerged and organized itself from the basic chemistry of early Earth.

A new experimental system demonstrates that precursors of ribonucleotides, amino acids, and lipids may have simultaneously arisen from the same prebiotic chemistry.

March 2014's selection of notable quotes

Ribosomal RNA fingerprints reveal the three domains of life.

Reconsidering the uniqueness of life on our planet