Scientists on their quest to find the origin of life have stared into the primordial soup, trying to answer the ultimate chicken-and-egg question: Which came first, the genetic code or the proteins ...

A doctoral student recreated a tiny piece of the universe in a bottle to investigate the chemistry that led to life on Earth.

A 13-atom molecule containing sulfur has been discovered in interstellar space for the first time, providing insight into the origins of the chemistry of life.

The origin of life on Earth has been mulled over by scientists for centuries. We now know that life’s building blocks are RNA, amino acids, and cells. But if life originated from the primordial ooze ...

Amino acids, the building blocks necessary for life, were previously found in samples of 4.6-billion-year-old rocks from an ...

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 ...

There is still so much we don’t understand about the origin of life on Earth. The definition of life itself is a source of debate among scientists, but most researchers agree on the fundamental ...

The complex building blocks of life can form spontaneously in space, a new lab experiment shows.

Tiny grains of dust from asteroid Bennu are reshaping how scientists think life’s ingredients formed in space.

How did the building blocks of life come together to spawn the first organisms? It’s one of the most longstanding questions in biology — and scientists just got a major clue. In a new study published ...

The origin of life could therefore be closely linked to the special environment of large soda lakes, which, due to their geological setting and phosphorus balance, provided ideal conditions for ...