Scientists think they’ve found a way to investigate the creation of cell membranes and DNA genomes that gave rise to the last universal common ancestor.

Learn more about the top theories about how life began on Earth, and how it may not have started from scratch.

Ancient duplicated genes are giving scientists their first real clues about what life was like before all life on Earth ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Mineral-laden water emerging from a hydrothermal vent on the Niua underwater volcano in the Lau Basin, southwest Pacific Ocean.

"By following universal paralogs," says Kaçar, "we can connect the earliest steps of life on Earth to the tools of modern ...

Life’s story may stretch further back than scientists once thought. Some genes found in nearly every organism today were already duplicated before all life shared a common ancestor. By tracking these ...

How did life begin on Earth? While scientists have theories, they don't yet fully understand the precise chemical steps that led to biology, or when the first primitive life forms appeared. But what ...

Here’s what you will learn when you read this story: Abiogenesis—the emergence of life from nonliving organics—is the leading theory regarding how life spawned on Earth, but it is being questioned.

Before sunlight ever reached the planet, another force may have sparked life—electricity. Deep beneath the ocean floor, ancient hydrothermal vents might have generated natural electric fields strong ...