A Virginia Tech geobiologist with collaborators from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found evidence in the fossil record that complex multicellularity appeared in living things about 600 million years […]
Origin & Evolution of Life
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life
Early Earth Less Hellish Than Previously Thought
Conditions on Earth for the first 500 million years after it formed may have been surprisingly similar to the present day, complete with oceans, continents and active crustal plates. This […]
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life
Oxygen-producing Life A ppeared at Least 60 Million Years Earlier Than Previously Thought
Geologists from Trinity College Dublin have rewritten the evolutionary history books by finding that oxygen-producing life forms were present on Earth some 3 billion years ago – a full 60 […]
Posted inFossils & Paleontology, Origin & Evolution of Life
How Some of Earth's Earliest Animals Lived and Died
New three-dimensional reconstructions show how some of the earliest animals on Earth developed, and provide some answers as to why they went extinct. A bizarre group of uniquely shaped organisms […]
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life
Abiotic Ozone and Oxygen in Atmospheres Similar to Prebiotic Earth
The search for life on planets outside our solar system will use spectroscopic identification of atmospheric biosignatures. The most robust remotely-detectable potential biosignature is considered to be the detection of […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Origin & Evolution of Life
Stanley Miller's Forgotten Experiments, Analyzed
Stanley Miller, the chemist whose landmark experiment published in 1953 showed how some of the molecules of life could have formed on a young Earth, left behind boxes of experimental […]
Posted inExtremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Origin & Evolution of Life, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
Hydrothermal Vents Could Explain Chemical Precursors to Life
Roy Price first heard about the hydrothermal vents in New Caledonia’s Bay of Prony a decade ago. Being a scuba diver and a geologist, he was fascinated by the pictures […]
Posted inBiogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Mars, Origin & Evolution of Life
Mars Mineral Could be Linked to Terrestrial Microbes
Scientists have discovered that the earliest living organisms on Earth were capable of making a mineral that may be found on Mars. The clay-mineral stevensite has been used since ancient […]
Posted inBiogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Habitable Zones, Origin & Evolution of Life, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
Metabolism May Have Started in Early Oceans Before the Origin of Life
The chemical reactions behind the formation of common metabolites in modern organisms could have formed spontaneously in the earth’s early oceans, questioning the events thought to have led to the […]
Posted inBiogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Origin & Evolution of Life, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
Reconstructed Ancient Ocean Reveals Secrets About the Origin of Life
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have published details about how the first organisms on Earth could have become metabolically active. The results, which are reported in the journal Molecular […]