Origin of Life News
April 26, 2025
Top Headlines
Apr. 23, 2025 Ancient DNA analysis challenges our understanding of the ancient Phoenician-Punic civilization. An international team of researchers analyzing genome-wide data from 210 ancient individuals has found that Levantine Phoenician towns contributed little ...
Apr. 21, 2025 An international collaboration has published groundbreaking research, shedding light on the most significant increase in complexity in the history of life's evolution on Earth: the origin of the eukaryotic ...
Apr. 21, 2025 What roils beneath the Earth's surface may feel a world away, but the activity can help forge land masses that dictate ocean circulation, climate patterns, and even animal activity and evolution. In ...
Apr. 18, 2025 Scientists report adaptive divergence in cryptic color pattern is underlain by two distinct, complex chromosomal rearrangements, where millions of bases of DNA were flipped backwards and moved from ...
Latest Headlines
updated 8:51am EDT
Apr. 18, 2025 Researchers have demonstrated that intensified environmental variability (EV) can promote the evolution of cooperation through simulation based on ...
Apr. 14, 2025 Researchers may have answered one of space science's long-running questions -- and it could change our understanding of how life began. Carbon-rich asteroids are abundant in space yet make up less ...
Apr. 9, 2025 A new genomic study has uncovered long-lost genetic diversity in mammoth lineages spanning over a million years, providing new insights into the evolutionary history of these ...
Apr. 3, 2025 Scientists have helped to construct a detailed timeline for bacterial evolution, suggesting some bacteria used oxygen long before evolving the ability to produce it through ...
Apr. 2, 2025 Modern continental rocks carry chemical signatures from the very start of our planet's history, challenging current theories about plate ...
Mar. 27, 2025 Scientists have uncovered a surprising role for calcium in shaping the building blocks of life. Their study reveals that calcium ions help determine the molecular 'handedness' (chirality) of tartaric ...
Apr. 2, 2025 An international team has sequenced the first ancient genomes from the so-called Green Sahara, a period when the largest desert in the world temporarily turned into a humid savanna-like environment. ...
Mar. 26, 2025 A new species of fossil is 444 million years-old with soft insides perfectly preserved. Research 'ultramarathon' saw palaeontologist puzzled by ...
Mar. 24, 2025 Biologists have discovered that bombesin, a neurohormone controlling appetite in humans, also regulates feeding in starfish, revealing its ancient evolutionary origin dating back over 500 million ...
Mar. 26, 2025 Scientists uncovered how whole-genome duplication emerges and remains stable over thousands of generations of evolution in the ...
Earlier Headlines
Mar. 26, 2025 New research sheds light on the earliest days of the earth's formation and potentially calls into question some earlier assumptions in planetary science about the early years of rocky planets. ...
Mar. 25, 2025 Life needs sufficient phosphorus. However, the element is scarce, not only today but also at the time of the origin of life. So where was there sufficient phosphorus four billion years ago for life ...
Mar. 25, 2025 Enzymes originally evolved in high-temperature environments and later adapted to lower temperatures as Earth cooled. Scientists discovered that a key shift in enzyme function occurred over ...
Mar. 24, 2025 The longest organic molecules identified to date on Mars have recently been detected. These long carbon chains, containing up to 12 consecutive carbon atoms, could exhibit features similar to the ...
Mar. 21, 2025 Who were our earliest ancestors? The answer could lie in a special group of single-celled organisms with a cytoskeleton similar to that of complex organisms, such as animals and ...
Mar. 20, 2025 Feathers, essential for thermoregulation, flight, and communication in birds, originate from simple appendages known as proto-feathers, which were present in certain dinosaurs.By studying embryonic ...
Mar. 18, 2025 Modern humans descended from not one, but at least two ancestral populations that drifted apart and later reconnected, long before modern humans spread across the ...
Mar. 14, 2025 A study shows that electrical charges in sprays of water can cause chemical reactions that form organic molecules from inorganic materials. The findings provide evidence that microlightning may have ...
Mar. 10, 2025 It is widely believed that Earth's atmosphere has been rich in oxygen for about 2.5 billion years due to a relatively rapid increase in microorganisms capable of performing photosynthesis. ...
Mar. 6, 2025 Researchers have discovered the world's oldest known meteorite impact crater, which could significantly redefine our understanding of the origins of life and how our planet was shaped. The team ...
Feb. 25, 2025 The efficient architecture of our joints, which allows our skeletons to be flexible and sturdy, originated among our most ancient jawed fish ancestors, according to a new ...
Feb. 25, 2025 New research has revealed how massive ancient glaciers acted like giant bulldozers, reshaping Earth's surface and paving the way for complex life to flourish. By chemically analyzing crystals in ...
Feb. 25, 2025 A new study suggests that Neanderthals experienced a dramatic loss of genetic variation during the course of their evolution, foreshadowing their eventual extinction. Examination of semicircular ...
Feb. 24, 2025 New analysis of ancient fossilized rocks known as stromatolites, preserved in southern Zimbabwe, suggests strong links to hydrothermal nutrient recycling, 'meaning that early life may in part ...
Feb. 14, 2025 The cool conditions which have allowed ice caps to form on Earth are rare events in the planet's history and require many complex processes working at once, according to new ...
Feb. 14, 2025 Humanity may not be extraordinary but rather the natural evolutionary outcome for our planet and likely others, according to a new model for how intelligent life developed on ...
Feb. 14, 2025 Ancient Egyptian mummified bodies smell 'woody,' 'spicy' and 'sweet', finds a new study, revealing new details about mumification ...
Feb. 13, 2025 The field of evolution examines how organisms adapt to their environments over generations, but what about the evolution of evolution ...
Feb. 10, 2025 Evolution is traditionally associated with a process of increasing complexity and gaining new genes. However, the explosion of the genomic era shows that gene loss and simplification is a much more ...
Feb. 6, 2025 A recent study investigates how polyester microdroplets, potential precursors to modern cells, could form under realistic early Earth conditions. Researchers pushed these conditions to the limits, ...
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
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Tuesday, February 25, 2025
- Humans Inherited Their Flexible Joints from the Earliest Jawed Fish
- Giant Ice Bulldozers: How Ancient Glaciers Helped Life Evolve
- New Study Reveals Neanderthals Experienced Population Crash 110,000 Years Ago
Monday, February 24, 2025
Friday, February 14, 2025
- Research Reveals How Earth Got Its Ice Caps
- Does Planetary Evolution Favor Human-Like Life? Study Ups Odds We're Not Alone
- Ancient Egyptian Mummified Bodies Smell 'woody,' 'spicy' And 'sweet'
Thursday, February 13, 2025
Monday, February 10, 2025
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
- Meteorite Discovery Challenges Long-Held Theories on Earth's Missing Elements
- Missing Link in Indo-European Languages' History Found
Monday, February 3, 2025
- New Research on Ancient Life Found in Yellowstone Hot Springs
- Life-Bearing Water Arrived on Earth Later Rather Than Sooner
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Friday, January 24, 2025
Thursday, January 23, 2025
- New Tool Enables Phylogenomic Analyses of Entire Genomes
- Streamlining Genetic Analysis for Phylogenetic Studies
- Solving the Evolutionary Puzzle of Polyploidy: How Genome Duplication Shapes Adaptation
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Thursday, January 9, 2025
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
- Scorching Climate Drove Lampreys Apart During Cretaceous Period
- Discovery of 'Punk' And 'Emo' Fossils Challenges Our Understanding of Ancient Molluscs
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
- DNA Adds New Chapter to Indonesia's Layered Human History
- Earth's Air War: Explaining the Delayed Rise of Plants, Animals on Land
Monday, January 6, 2025
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Thursday, December 19, 2024
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
Thursday, December 12, 2024
- Study Sheds Light on the Origin of the Genetic Code
- A New Timeline for Neanderthal Interbreeding With Modern Humans
- Oldest Modern Human Genomes Sequenced
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Thursday, December 5, 2024
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Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Monday, October 21, 2024
- What Happened When a Meteorite the Size of Four Mount Everests Hit Earth?
- Turtle Genome Provides New Clues on the Evolution of Vertebrates
- Creating a Simplified Form of Life
- Ancient Viral DNA in the Human Genome Linked to Multiple Sclerosis and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Monday, October 14, 2024
Friday, October 11, 2024
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Wednesday, September 25, 2024
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Thursday, September 19, 2024
- Researchers Publish Breakthrough Study on How New Genes Evolve
- New Research Reenvisions Earth's Mantle as a Relatively Uniform Reservoir
- Insights Into South African Population History from 10,000-Year-Old Human DNA
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
Monday, September 16, 2024
Thursday, September 12, 2024
- New Fossil Fish Species Scales Up Evidence of Earth's Evolutionary March
- The Neanderthals May Have Become Extinct Because of Their Isolated Lifestyle
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Monday, September 9, 2024
- Iron Was Life's 'primeval' Metal
- With AI, Extreme Microbe Reveals How Life's Building Blocks Adapt to High Pressure
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
Friday, August 30, 2024
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Monday, August 26, 2024
Thursday, August 22, 2024
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
- Next Time You Beat a Virus, Thank Your Microbial Ancestors
- Life from a Drop of Rain: New Research Suggests Rainwater Helped Form the First Protocell Walls
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Friday, August 16, 2024
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Friday, August 9, 2024
- Researchers Make Breakthrough in Understanding Species Abundance
- Record-Breaking Recovery of Rocks That Originated in Earth's Mantle Could Reveal Secrets of Planet's History
Tuesday, August 6, 2024
Monday, August 5, 2024
- Study Analyzes Potato-Pathogen 'arms Race' After Irish Famine
- New Model Refutes Leading Theory on How Earth's Continents Formed