Long before vertebrates walked on land, millipedes had the place to themselves. Hundreds of millions of years before ...

What took so long for humans to appear on Earth? The Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and life began about 4 billion years ago, yet humans—the only intelligent, technological species we know of in the ...

A remarkable fossil hidden in a museum collection for decades is helping scientists rethink one of the biggest mysteries in ...

A new study has revealed that two continent-sized regions in Earth's deep mantle have distinctive histories and resulting chemical composition, in contrast to the common assumption that they are the ...

Life on Earth began in a way that still boggles the mind. Around 4.5 billion years ago, a chemical process called abiogenesis occurred, where life emerged from non-life. Imagine a hot, watery mix of ...

To better understand the circadian clock in modern-day cyanobacteria, a Japanese research team has studied ancient timekeeping systems. They examined the oscillation of the clock proteins KaiA, KaiB, ...

Gabriel D. Victora's team has turned germinal centers into a living laboratory for one of biology's oldest questions: how ...

Evolution and geologic history reveal how life and Earth have changed over time. The National Academies explore fossil records, genetic evidence, and natural processes that shape our planet.

Bacteria are the most diverse organisms on Earth, with a number of species that’s difficult to quantify. They’re also incredibly old. Bacteria consist of a single cell. They do not have bones and are ...