Life

A new study has identified 1,004 stars from which aliens could detect signs of life in Earth’s atmosphere by watching as our planet passes across the disk of the Sun. The study could help provide targets for groups searching for alien civilizations.

Venus may owe its extreme atmosphere to an ancient run-in with the gas giant Jupiter, which could have fundamentally altered the planet’s orbit, and led to the loss of massive amounts of its water reserves.

While Mars may be the most likely place we might find life beyond Earth, it's not alone. High in the atmosphere of Venus, astronomers have made the startling discovery of a gas called phosphine – a strong contender for a sign of microbial life.

A new experiment placing bacteria on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) has found that micro-organisms can survive in space for years, or even decades. The study lends weight to the idea that life could travel between planets.

A few years ago researchers discovered bacteria in Antarctica that could survive on nothing but air. Now the team has found evidence of this handy ability in other cold desert locations. The finding could have implications for life beyond Earth.

Phosphorus is a key ingredient for life as we know it, but it’s strangely uncommon in the cosmos. Now astronomers have discovered a new type of star that’s very rich in phosphorus, which could imply that alien life is more common than we thought.

In what sounds like the opening of a sci-fi movie, scientists have revived microorganisms that have laid dormant for 100 million years. These microbes were found deep beneath the seafloor, where they’ve been slumbering since the age of dinosaurs.

Hot on the heels of a recently published genomic study correlating blood iron levels with healthy aging, more research is suggesting high systemic iron levels can be linked with reduced life expectancy.

A new study, led by researchers from Stanford University, has uncovered an association between total REM sleep quantity and lifespan. The study is the first to investigate the specific relationship between REM sleep and mortality.

Given how big the universe is, chances are tiny that Earth is the only planet with life. But how would we find others? A new NASA grant has been awarded to try and do so by hunting for signs of advanced alien civilizations, or "technosignatures."

We keep finding life thriving under conditions we’d previously ruled out. The latest example comes from studies of rock cores drilled from the floor of the Indian Ocean, where microbes were discovered alive and well under almost half a mile of rock.

Organic compounds have been discovered on Mars in recent years. A new study examines the different ways that one type in particular, thiophene, may have formed, and intriguingly one of the most plausible scenarios involves ancient microbial life.