In a new book, astrophysicist Mario Livio describes how the existence of life on Earth can be traced back to an RNA-based “protocell.” The following is an excerpt from Is Earth Exceptional?: The Quest ...

Science still faces mysteries like dark matter, consciousness, and the origin of life—questions that challenge researchers and push the limits of understanding.

A new study published in July 2025 tackles one of science's most profound mysteries—how did life first emerge from nonliving matter on early Earth? Using cutting edge mathematical approaches, ...

The origin of life on Earth has always been a mystery. For many years, scientists have looked to the stars, believing that the building blocks of life that set forth evolution here on our planet came ...

Pentoses are essential carbohydrates in the metabolism of modern lifeforms, but their availability on early Earth is unclear since these molecules are unstable. Now, researchers reveal a chemical ...

In a new book, physicist Sara Walker argues that assembly theory can explain what life is, and even help scientists create new forms of it. Sara Walker, a physicist at Arizona State University, says ...

The origin of life on Earth is still enigmatic, but we are slowly unraveling the steps involved and the necessary ingredients. Scientists believe life arose in a primordial soup of organic chemicals ...

Scientists think cosmic ice is where prebiotic molecules — the building blocks of life — form. Here on Earth, researchers replicated particles of space ice and bombarded them with electrons and ...

A new discovery of microbial activity in 3.5 billion-year-old volcanic rock and one of earth’s earliest signs of geological existence sheds new light on the antiquity of life, says University of ...

Japanese researchers uncovered a universal rule describing why life’s growth slows despite abundant nutrients. Their “global ...

Canadian Christian apologist Calvin Smith says his recent interaction with Grok 4, the artificial intelligence platform backed by entrepreneur Elon Musk, revealed starkly different answers depending ...