A new study suggests that ancient microbes once cast as oxygen haters may have actually learned to use the gas, offering a ...

Researchers investigating the origin of complex life on Earth appear to have solved a longstanding mystery at the heart of how animals, plants, and fungi evolved. To understand the conundrum, you must ...

Ancient microbes tied to our earliest ancestors could use oxygen, reshaping ideas about how complex life began on Earth.

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 ...

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

A tiny amoeba has broken a pretty big record. The newly discovered species of single-celled organism can divide and reproduce at a piping hot 63 degrees Celsius (145 degrees Fahrenheit), higher than ...

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

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 ...

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 ...

The team has proposed a new evidence-based scenario for the emergence of complex life they have called ‘CALM’ - Complex Archaeon, Late Mitochondrion. Complex life began to develop earlier, and over a ...