DNA dominates life on Earth, but modern chemistry and evolutionary theory suggest it may be only one possible solution for biology. Scientists have already demonstrated alternative genetic systems in ...

Scientists have pushed back LUCA’s origin by hundreds of millions of years.

Meteor impacts may have helped spark life on Earth, creating hot, chemical-rich environments where the first living cells could take shape, according to research integrated by a recent Rutgers ...

Earth's earliest continents may have set the chemical stage for life by regulating boron levels in ancient oceans, a new ...

We have only one example of biology forming in the universe — life on Earth. But what if life can form in other ways? How do you look for alien life when you don’t know what alien life might look like ...

The concept behind the model is simple: life can travel to and terraform planets around other stars. In doing so, the planet that life travels to becomes more similar to the planet it came from. In ...

One debate about the origin of life on Earth concerns whether it formed around deep-sea hydrothermal vents or in scars left behind by an asteroid impact. A new review article analyzes recent research ...

Earth, a little over four billion years ago: The planet was still in its infancy, coming together just 500 million years prior. There was little to no oxygen. The surface — what little there was — was ...

See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. A new study suggests that cloud-to-ground lightning might have been key ...

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 ...