A 410-million-year-old fossil shows ancient lichens were shaping Earth’s surface long before forests took root.

All life on Earth can be traced back to a Last Universal Common Ancestor, or LUCA. A study suggests that this organism likely lived on Earth only 400 million years after its formation. Further ...

Before sunlight ever reached the planet, another force may have sparked life—electricity. Deep beneath the ocean floor, ...

A new study used mathematical formulas and demonstrated that it’s highly unlikely life began on Earth. Instead, the researcher points to panspermia, a theory that life or the ingredients for life came ...

The question of when life began on Earth is as old as human culture. “It’s one of these fundamental human questions: When did life appear on Earth?” said Professor Martin Whitehouse of the Swedish ...

Introduction : The coherence of history / Stephen Jay Gould -- The planetary setting of prebiotic evolution / Sherwood Chang -- Early environments : constraints and opportunities for early evolution / ...

(THE CONVERSATION) People have long wondered what life was first like on Earth, and if there is life in our solar system beyond our planet. Scientists have reason to believe that some of the moons in ...

Salt is an essential nutrient for the human body. But hundreds of millions of years before the first humans, salt minerals ...

The study of young stars like EK Draconis has offered fresh insights into the violent activity of our Sun in its youth. By ...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) James F. Holden, UMass Amherst (THE CONVERSATION) People have long wondered what life ...