Two worms frozen in the Siberian permafrost for around 40,000 years have now been thawed and revived, making them the oldest living creatures on the planet and the first multicellular organisms to have survived such long-term cryobiosis.
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Scientists have long sought an explanation as to why stable conditions on Earth have persisted long enough for life to evolve over millions of years. Now a team has hit upon two mechanisms, "sequential selection" and "selection by survival alone," as a possible solution to this "Gaia puzzle."
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When looking for exoplanets that could potentially support life, astronomers start with those orbiting within the “habitable zone." A new study has found that two of the most promising planets are now even more promising, with axial tilts that likely give them regular seasons and a stable climate.
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According to the results of a new study, soon after the creation of the solar system, Mars may have formed a primordial crust capable of hosting life. The research is based on an analysis of the rare and super-valuable Black Beauty meteorite, which was discovered in the Sahara Desert back in 2011.
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Saturn’s moon Enceladus is one of the most promising places in the Solar System to look for extraterrestrial life. Now Cassini mission data has shown the presence of complex organic molecules, spraying up from the moon’s subsurface ocean through cracks in the icy shell.
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Scientists have found the earliest animal footprints ever discovered. The tracks and burrows, dating back half a billion years to the Ediacaran Period, were made by some of the earliest bilaterian animals, and reveal that more complex lifeforms arose earlier than previously thought.
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One of the most promising places in the solar system to search for life is Jupiter’s moon, Europa, an icy world with a slushy, salty, subsurface ocean. Old data has turned up new evidence of water plumes spraying through the icy shell into space.
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Our universe seems to contain a suspiciously perfect amount of "dark energy" to sustain life. But new research suggests that life is still possible even with far more dark energy than we have, and the results have some big implications for the multiverse theory.
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Evidence is mounting that the building blocks of life were assembled in space and then delivered to Earth after new experiments managed to produce a key amino acid under simulated space conditions. This means we humans, and all other life on the planet, might have actually been aliens all along.
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The ESA/Roscosmos Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) is mere weeks away from commencing its atmospheric search for evidence of recent geological activity, and possibly life on everyone’s favorite Red Planet.
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