Origin of Life News

April 19, 2024

Top Headlines

RNA's Hidden Potential: New Study Unveils Its Role in Early Life and Future Bioengineering

Apr. 18, 2024 — The origin of life continues to remain a matter of debate. The ribonucleic acid (RNA) world hypothesis proposes that 'ribozymes' which store genetic information and possess catalytic functions may ...

How Seaweed Became Multicellular

Apr. 12, 2024 — A deep dive into macroalgae genetics has uncovered the genetic underpinnings that enabled macroalgae, or 'seaweed,' to evolve multicellularity. Three lineages of macroalgae developed multicellularity independently and during very different time ...

The Evolving Attitudes of Gen X Toward Evolution

Apr. 10, 2024 — As the centennial of the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 approaches, a new study illustrates that the attitudes of Americans in Generation X toward evolution shifted as they ...

Heat Flows the Secret to Order in Prebiotic Molecular Kitchen

Apr. 4, 2024 — Biophysicists have demonstrated how heat flows through rock fissures could have created the conditions for the emergence of ...

Latest Headlines

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Genetic Variant Identified That Shaped the Human Skull Base

Apr. 17, 2024 — Researchers have identified a variant in the gene TBX1 as key in the development of the unique morphology at the base of the skull. TBX1 is present at higher levels in humans than in closely related ...

We've Had Bird Evolution All Wrong

Apr. 1, 2024 — Genomic anamolies dating back to the time of the dinosaurs misled scientists about the evolutionary history of ...

Ancient DNA Reveals the Appearance of a 6th Century Chinese Emperor

Mar. 28, 2024 — What did an ancient Chinese emperor from 1,500 years ago look like? A team of researchers reconstructed the face of Chinese Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou using DNA extracted from his remains. The study ...

Natural Recycling at the Origin of Life

Mar. 22, 2024 — How was complex life able to develop on the inhospitable early Earth? At the beginning there must have been ribonucleic acid (RNA) to carry the first genetic information. To build up complexity in ...

Harnessing Hydrogen at Life's Origin

Mar. 18, 2024 — A new report uncovers how hydrogen gas, the energy of the future, provided energy in the past, at the origin of life 4 billion years ago. Hydrogen gas is clean fuel. It burns with oxygen in the air ...

New Geological Study: Scandinavia Was Born in Greenland

Mar. 21, 2024 — The oldest Scandinavian bedrock was 'born' in Greenland, according to a new geological study. The study helps us understand the origin of continents and why Earth is the only planet in our solar ...

Across Oceans and Millennia: Decoding the Origin and History of the Bottle Gourd

Mar. 20, 2024 — Researchers have uncovered intriguing details about the origins and spread of the bottle gourd, one of the oldest domesticated crops. Their work ...

Sulfur and the Origin of Life

Mar. 13, 2024 — A new study shines a spotlight on sulfur, a chemical element that, while all familiar, has proved surprisingly resistant to scientific efforts in probing its role in the origin of ...

New Study Discovers How Altered Protein Folding Drives Multicellular Evolution

Mar. 8, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a mechanism steering the evolution of multicellular life. They identified how altered protein folding drives ...

Modeling the Origins of Life: New Evidence for an 'RNA World'

Mar. 4, 2024 — Scientists provide fresh insights on the origins of life, presenting compelling evidence supporting the 'RNA World' hypothesis. The study unveils an RNA enzyme that can make accurate copies of other ...

An Evolutionary Mystery 125 Million Years in the Making

Mar. 4, 2024 — Plant biologists have uncovered an evolutionary mystery over 100 million years in the making. It turns out that sometime during the last 125 million years, tomatoes and Arabidopsis thaliana plants ...

Scientists ID Burned Bodies Using Technique Used for Extracting DNA from Woolly Mammoths, Neanderthals

Feb. 29, 2024 — A technique originally devised to extract DNA from woolly mammoths and other ancient archaeological specimens can be used to potentially identify badly burned human remains, according to ...

Microbial Viruses Act as Secret Drivers of Climate Change

Feb. 29, 2024 — Scientists have discovered that viruses that infect microbes contribute to climate change by playing a key role in cycling methane, a potent greenhouse gas, through the ...

How First Cells Could Have Formed on Earth

Feb. 29, 2024 — New phospholipid discovery brings researchers closer to understanding how primordial cells emerged during origin of ...

How Molecular 'Handedness' Emerged in Early Biology

Feb. 28, 2024 — Chemists fill a major gap in origin-of-life ...

Change in Gene Code May Explain How Human Ancestors Lost Tails

Feb. 28, 2024 — A genetic change in our ancient ancestors may partly explain why humans don't have tails like ...

Killer Instinct Drove Evolution of Mammals' Predatory Ancestors

Feb. 22, 2024 — The evolutionary success of the first large predators on land was driven by their need to improve as killers, researchers ...

Compound Vital for All Life Likely Played a Role in Life's Origin

Feb. 22, 2024 — A chemical compound essential to all living things has been synthesized in a lab in conditions that could have occurred on early Earth, suggesting it played a role at the outset of ...

Butterfly and Moth Genomes Mostly Unchanged Despite 250 Million Years of Evolution

Feb. 21, 2024 — Comparison of over 200 high-quality butterfly and moth genomes reveals key insights into their biology, evolution and diversification over the last 250 million years, as well as clues for ...

An Awkward Family Reunion: Sea Monsters Are Our Cousins

Feb. 21, 2024 — The sea lamprey, a 500-million-year-old animal with a sharp-toothed suction cup for a mouth, is the thing of nightmares. A new study discovered that the hindbrain -- the part of the brain controlling ...

Ancient DNA Reveals Down Syndrome in Past Human Societies

Feb. 20, 2024 — By analysing ancient DNA, an international team of researchers have uncovered cases of chromosomal disorders, including what could be the first case of Edwards syndrome ever identified from ...

Ancient Retroviruses Played a Key Role in the Evolution of Vertebrate Brains

Feb. 15, 2024 — Researchers report that ancient viruses may be to thank for myelin -- and, by extension, our large, complex brains. The team found that a retrovirus-derived genetic element or ...

Vittrup Man Crossed Over from Forager to Farmer Before Being Sacrificed in Denmark

Feb. 14, 2024 — Vittrup Man was born along the Scandinavian coast before moving to Denmark, where he was later sacrificed, according to a new ...

Surprisingly Vibrant Color of 12-Million-Year-Old Snail Shells

Feb. 9, 2024 — Snail shells are often colorful and strikingly patterned. This is due to pigments that are produced in special cells of the snail and stored in the shell in varying concentrations. Fossil shells, on ...

Scandinavia's First Farmers Slaughtered the Hunter-Gatherer Population, Study Finds

Feb. 8, 2024 — Following the arrival of the first farmers in Scandinavia 5,900 years ago, the hunter-gatherer population was wiped out within a few generations, according to a new study. The results, which are ...

Thailand's Iron Age Log Coffin Culture

Feb. 6, 2024 — A mortuary practice known as Log Coffin culture characterizes the Iron Age of highland Pang Mapha in northwestern Thailand. Between 2,300 and 1,000 years ago, individuals were buried in large wooden ...

Source Rocks of the First Real Continents

Jan. 31, 2024 — Geoscientists have uncovered a missing link in the enigmatic story of how the continents developed- - a revised origin story that doesn't require the start of plate tectonics or any external ...

Neanderthals and Humans Lived Side by Side in Northern Europe 45,000 Years Ago

Jan. 31, 2024 — Archaeologists have debated whether Neanderthals or modern humans made stone tools that are found at sites across northern Europe and date from about 40,000 years ago. A new excavation at one site in ...

Cosmic Building Blocks of Life Discovered Through the Electron Microscope

Jan. 29, 2024 — Meteorites are fragments of asteroids which find their way to Earth as shooting stars and provide information on the origins of our solar system. A team of researchers has examined the so-called ...

DNA from Preserved Feces Reveals Ancient Japanese Gut Environment

Jan. 24, 2024 — DNA from ancient feces can offer archaeologists new clues about the life and health of Japanese people who lived thousands of years ago, according to a new ...