How many different molecules can be created when you release one of the universe’s most reactive substances, hydrogen cyanide, in the lab? And will the process create some particularly interesting […]
Origin & Evolution of Life
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Mars, Origin & Evolution of Life
New Research Supports Theory That Life Started on Mars
Professor Steven Benner will tell geochemists gathering today (Thursday, 29 August) at the annual Goldschmidt conference that an oxidized mineral form of the element molybdenum, which may have been crucial […]
Posted inGenomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Origin & Evolution of Life
Modeling a Near-optimal Genetic Code
Researchers have created a model that may explain the complexities of the origins of life. Their work, which appears in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, offers new insights […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Origin & Evolution of Life
Phosphorus From Meteorites Aided Life on Early Earth
Astrobiologists have shown that a key element for life on Earth was likely delivered to our planet on meteorites. Their work indicates that the early Earth was bombarded by meteorites […]
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life
Call for Nominations – Cosmic Origins Program Analysis Group
The Astrophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate is pleased to issue this open call for nominations to serve on the Executive Committee of NASA’s Cosmic Origins Program Analysis Group, […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Origin & Evolution of Life
Serpentinization of Ocean Crust and The Origin of Life
In a new study published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, scientists funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) advance a theory about life’s origins based on the […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Icy Worlds, Origin & Evolution of Life
How Did Life On Earth Get Started?
Three papers co-authored by Mike Russell at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory strengthen the case that Earth’s first life began at alkaline hydrothermal vents at the bottom of oceans. Scientists are […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Origin & Evolution of Life
Natural Affinities May Have Set Stage for Life to Ignite
The chemical components crucial to the start of life on Earth may have primed and protected each other in never-before-realized ways, according to new research led by University of Washington […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Origin & Evolution of Life
Purple Bacteria on Earth Could Survive Alien Light
Purple bacteria contain pigments that allow them to use sunlight as their source of energy, hence their color. Small as they are, these microbes can teach us a lot about […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Origin & Evolution of Life, Plant Biology
Greening of the Earth pushed way back in time
Conventional scientific wisdom has it that plants and other creatures have only lived on land for about 500 million years, and that landscapes of the early Earth were as barren […]