Ten years ago, nobody knew that Asgard archaea even existed. In 2015, however, researchers examining deep-sea sediments discovered gene fragments that indicated a new and previously undiscovered form ...

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

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 a long time, the origin of complex life has seemed like a chapter torn out of the book of biology. The middle has been ...

John M. Archibald is in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4H7, Canada, and also at the Institute for Comparative Genomics, Dalhousie ...

Following the drive to understand and control bacteria, it’s becoming clear that our methods have changed the very organisms we aim to understand, increasing resistance to tried-and-true antimicrobial ...

Current hypotheses suggest that all life on Earth evolved from a common ancestor that diversified into the variety of organisms seen today. Scientists propose that the eukaryotic branch of this family ...

Researchers have succeeded in cultivating an ultra-small bacterial strain parasitizing archaea and classified it as new species and genus of Minisyncoccus archaeiphilus. AIST researchers, in ...

From the flamboyant blossoms and birds of rainforests to the living rainbows of coral reefs, Earth’s surface is teeming with life. But some of its most diverse and fascinating biomes are thriving in ...

Life’s fundamental structure is the cell, and so the main things that a cell does — processing biomolecules, growing, replicating its genetic material and producing a new body — are considered ...