New Atlas

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Study links spikes in oxygen levels with bursts of evolution

Michael Irving May 14, 2019

Within a relatively short period of time, life burst forth into an incredible diversity of forms, in an event that has since come to be known as the Cambrian explosion. Now, an international team of scientists has found clues to what may have caused that – spikes in oxygen levels.

A new study adds support to the theory that spikes in oxygen levels helped make conditions ...

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New evidence suggests life on Earth started in shallow ponds, not deep oceans

Michael Irving April 15, 2019

How did life emerge from non-living matter? The prevailing hypothesis is that life got started in the ocean, where hydrothermal vents provided just the right chemical reactions. But a new MIT study has found that ancient oceans probably didn’t have enough nitrogen – but shallow ponds might have.

A new study gives more evidence that life got started in shallow ponds, not the deep ...

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UV-drenched exoplanets might still host life after all

Michael Irving April 10, 2019

Unfortunately, some of the most likely candidates for life on exoplanets are bathed in apparently-lethal levels of radiation – but a new study from Cornell University says that might not be a problem. Case in point: Earth.

The intense UV radiation that bombards exoplanets orbiting red dwarf stars might not hinder life, according ...

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Life on planet Earth may take millions of years to recover from a mass extinction event

Anthony Wood April 8, 2019

It takes millions of years for life to fully recover from a catastrophic extinction event, according to a new study that examined the aftermath of the asteroid strike that wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

Artist's impression of a large asteroid colliding with Earth

Biology Audio available

First computer-generated genome could lead to custom synthetic lifeforms

Michael Irving April 1, 2019

Scientists have created the first fully computer-generated genome of a living organism. Named Caulobacter ethensis-2.0, it was built by simplifying the natural code of Caulobacter crescentus. The team says this is a huge step towards creating completely synthetic life and medicinal DNA molecules.

Scientists have created the first computer-generated genome of a living organism

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Microbes survive in space outside the ISS, raising hopes for life on Mars

Michael Irving March 27, 2019

Microorganisms keep turning up in Earth’s most extreme environments. To test whether certain hardy microbes can survive the harsh conditions of space or Mars, colonies were placed on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) for almost 18 months – and many managed to survive.

Samples of microbes on the outside of the International Space Station, as part of the BIOMEX ...

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Fossil fats suggest animal life got started later than previously thought

Michael Irving March 6, 2019

In the world of palaeontology, new discoveries usually proclaim things are older than we previously thought. But new research out of the Max Planck Institute has found that animals probably arose later than is currently believed.

Rhizaria algae is now believed to be responsible for fossil fat molecules that have confused scientists ...

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Synthetic DNA demonstrates just how weird aliens might be

Michael Irving February 21, 2019

Different conditions on different planets could have led life down paths that are completely … well, alien. To demonstrate, a NASA-funded study has successfully created a new synthetic genetic system that’s a viable alternative to DNA, made with twice as many “ingredients.”

An illustration of the new synthetic DNA structure, showing regular nucleotides (green, blue, red, yellow) along ...

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NASA's newest mission to look for life's ingredients and probe the universe's deep past

Michael Irving February 13, 2019

NASA has selected the newest space mission for its Explorer program: the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx). The spacecraft will search for the ingredients of life in the Milky Way, and peer as far as 10 billion years back in time.

An artist's impression of SPHEREx, the mission NASA has just selected for its Explorers program

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Two billion-year old fossils reveal earliest evidence of living locomotion

Michael Irving February 11, 2019

New fossils found in the African country of Gabon have turned up the earliest evidence of life showing some initiative and moving around of its own accord. It now seems that life was mobile some 1.5 billion years earlier than previously thought.

The earliest known evidence of locomotion in complex lifeforms has been found in 2.1 billion-year old ...