Our single-celled ancestor lived in a world without plants, animals or oxygen-rich oceans. Yet, this seemingly simple microorganism took the first steps toward complex life. From this ancestor emerged ...

Prokaryotic cells, which include all bacteria and archaea, are ancient, and relatively simple compared to eukaryotic cells, which are found in fungi, plants, and animals. Scientists have long sought ...

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 ...

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

When you get infected with a virus, some of the first weapons your body deploys to fight it were passed down to us from our microbial ancestors billions of years ago. According to new research from ...

The origin of the nucleus remains hotly debated among scientists, but new imaging and genomic data are shedding light on this billion-year-old mystery.

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 ...

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

Now Fengbin “Jerry” Wang, Ph.D., of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and colleagues in Paris and Virginia report that such nanowires, composed of a long chain of cytochrome proteins, appear to ...