For decades, scientists have believed that complex life began when two very different microbes joined forces, eventually ...

A team led by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin has produced what may be the strongest evidence yet that the ...

A mystery about how the first complex life arose may have been solved. Multicellular creatures — all animals, fungi, and plants — are hybrids. Some time around 2 billion years ago, some ancient ...

The most widely accepted scientific explanation for the arrival of all complex life on Earth has had an unsolved mystery at its heart. According to the theory, all plants, animals and fungi, known ...

Complex cells are thought to be the result of a union between two ancient microorganisms, but scientists have long been ...

A giant virus discovered in Japan is adding fuel to the provocative idea that viruses helped create complex life. Named ushikuvirus, it infects amoebae and shows unique traits that connect different ...

Learn how oxygen’s early rise could have given complex life the energy boost it needed to evolve.

In his laboratory at the University of Poitiers in France, Abderrazak El Albani contemplates the rock glittering in his hands. To the untrained eye, the specimen resembles a piece of golden tortellini ...

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

Scientists propose that eukaryotes formed when an Asgard archaeon entered into a close partnership with an alphaproteobacterium. Over time, the two organisms became permanently linked. The ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. A study led by researchers from the University of Sydney and the ...