Life

Scientists have found evidence that an isolated pocket of complex life evolved 2 billion years ago – only to go extinct and take another 1.5 billion years to return to that level. The controversial find could rewrite our understanding of life on Earth.

Long before dinosaurs roamed the Earth, another giant predator claimed the top spot in its environment. Meet Gaiasia, a huge salamander-like creature that stalked the Permian swamps.

A new study of ancient detrital zircons from inland Australia has found the first evidence that the Earth has had fresh water and dry land four billion years ago, much longer than previously thought. In fact, 500 million years further back in time.

The Earth’s magnetic field is vital for life – without it, the Sun’s radiation would sterilize the planet. But a new study suggests we wouldn’t be here at all if that magnetic field hadn’t almost completely collapsed half a billion years ago.

Scientists have discovered that a once-in-a-billion-years evolutionary event is underway, as two lifeforms have merged into one organism that boasts abilities its peers would envy. Last time this happened, Earth got plants.

Venus may be a hellscape, but there’s a chance some forms of life could evolve there. A new MIT study has now found that the building blocks of life are surprisingly stable in highly concentrated sulfuric acid – which Venus’ clouds are made of.

We might find alien life as soon as 2030, suggests a new study. A lab experiment has shown instruments on a spacecraft headed to one of the most promising worlds to find life are sensitive enough to detect a single living cell in a single ice grain.

Scientists have given yeast a brand new ability – gaining energy from light. The technique was remarkably easy, the team says, and could not only help us understand evolution but make better beer and biofuel.

Saturn’s moon Enceladus continues to climb the list of best places to look for life beyond Earth. New NASA data has detected a molecule thought to be key to the origin of life, and suggests there’s more chemical energy for life to chow down on.

Meeting aliens rarely goes well for humanity in movies. Scientists have been practicing by trying to chat to whales in their own language – and judging by early results, we should probably beef up security around the Eiffel Tower and the White House.

Phosphorus – a key ingredient for life as we know it – was thought to be relatively rare in space. But now, astronomers have detected a surprising amount of the stuff on the fringes of the galaxy, suggesting life may be more common in the cosmos.

A 15-year project trying to build a synthetic yeast genome has hit a major milestone – yeast cells with more than 50% synthetic DNA for the first time. The team created synthetic versions of almost all its chromosomes plus a completely new one.