Amino acids have been around far longer than life has on our planet. We've even found amino acids — plus all the five major ingredients of DNA and RNA called nucleotides — on asteroid samples plucked ...

The study finds life’s origin faces severe mathematical challenges. Chance alone may not be enough. A new study addresses one of science’s most enduring questions: how did life first arise from ...

Researchers have revealed early conditions under which RNA and amino acids may have combined, giving rise to the origin of ...

Chemists at UCL (University College London) have shown how two of biology’s most fundamental ingredients, RNA (ribonucleic acid) and amino acids, could have spontaneously joined together at the origin ...

Scientists have made a bold leap in the search for life’s origins, offering a fresh look at how chemistry might have crossed over into biology. At the center of this progress are coacervate ...

Scientists are making a case for adjusting our understanding of how exactly genes first emerged. For a while, there’s been a consensus about the order in which the building-block amino acids ...

The research categorizes origin of life theories into three main groups, each with distinct predictions. Some theories suggest life's emergence requires so many precise conditions that it's ...

Single-celled species that often stick together in colonies have researchers rethinking the origin of animals.

In living organisms today, complex molecules like RNA and DNA are constructed with the help of enzymes. So how did these molecules form before life (and enzymes) existed? Why did some molecules ...