Oxygen played a key role in the evolution of complex organisms, according to new research published in BMC Evolutionary Biology. The study shows that the complexity of life forms increased earlier ...

Environmental evidence of the very first experiments in the evolution of complex life on Earth, has been uncovered by an international team of scientists. Until now, scientists broadly accepted ...

Life’s leap from single-celled to multicellular organisms marks a pivotal moment in evolutionary history. This transformation laid the foundation for the complex life forms we see today. By studying ...

The timeline of terrestrial evolution holds surprises. While scientists thought complex life required oxygen, a recent discovery shows it began forming in oceans deprived of this element, nearly a ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Far from being solo operators, most single-celled microbes are in complex relationships. In the ocean, the soil, and your gut, they ...

On the shores of the west coast of Australia lies a window to our past: the stromatolites and microbial mats of Gathaagudu (Shark Bay). To the untrained eye, they look like a collection of rocks and ...

The team has proposed a new evidence-based scenario for the emergence of complex life they have called ‘CALM’ - Complex Archaeon, Late Mitochondrion. Complex life began to develop earlier, and over a ...

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Around 700 million years ago, Earth was a frozen, white sphere, its rocky surface buried kilometers under ice. Despite the barren landscape, the evolution of complex life in the oceans was about to ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Once upon a time, long ago, the world was encased in ice. That’s the tale told by sedimentary rock in the tropics, many geologists ...