Has the answer to life's origins been hiding in our cells all along?The surprising discovery of mysterious blobs inside our cells is revolutionising our understanding of how life works, and how it got started Jun 15 26June 15, 2026Article at New Scientist
Life on Earth emerged fast. Far quicker than we thoughtIt’s time to rethink how we study life’s origins. It emerged far earlier, and far quicker, than we once thought possible Aug 19 25August 19, 2025Article at Aeon
The story of mirror life: From intriguing idea to unprecedented threatGrave warnings have been issued about the dangers of creating life forms using mirror-image molecules. How worried should we be? Feb 20 25February 20, 2025Article at New Scientist
A whole new world of tiny beings challenges fundamental ideas of lifeThe surprising discovery of entities smaller than viruses raises profound questions about what life is and how it got started Feb 12 25February 12, 2025Article at New Scientist
The Earth's deepest living organisms may hold clues to alien life on MarsMars isn't just the red planet: it's also a wet planet. On 12 August, US researchers reported evidence of a vast reservoir of liquid water, deep in the rocky crust of the planet. The data came from Nasa's Mars Insight Lander, which recorded more than… Aug 22 24August 22, 2024Article at BBC
Crucial chemical for life can form in conditions found on early EarthPantetheine, which helps enzymes to work and is found in every organism, can be formed by simple reactions and may have played a role in the origins of life One of the most important molecules in living organisms has been synthesised from scratch… Feb 22 24February 22, 2024Article at New Scientist
Strange virus-like replicators discovered in the human gutA previously unknown type of replicating agent named "obelisks” has been found in genomic data from stool samples – but we know little about what these entities do A previously unknown type of replicating agent, far smaller and simpler than a virus,… Jan 29 24January 29, 2024Article at New Scientist
Traces of ancient life reveal a 3.4-billion-year-old ecosystemChemical analysis of rocks found in South Africa shows that ancient microorganisms sustained themselves in a variety of ways, adding to evidence for an early origin of life on Earth As early as 3.4 billion years ago, life on Earth had formed diverse… Jan 22 24January 22, 2024Article at New Scientist
The Biggest Questions: How did life begin?How life begins is one of the biggest and hardest questions in science. All we know is that something happened on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago, and it may well have occurred on many other worlds in the universe as well. But we don’t know… Nov 14 23November 14, 2023Article at MIT Technology Review
How we will discover the mysterious origins of life once and for allSeventy years ago, three discoveries propelled our understanding of how life on Earth began. But has the biggest clue to life's origins been staring biologists in the face all along? HOW did life on Earth begin? Until 70 years ago, generations of… Oct 30 23October 30, 2023Article at New Scientist
Why the origins of life remain a mystery – and how we will crack itTo explain how life on Earth began, the big challenge is to identify the molecules and processes that enable non-living chemical systems to become more complex “IT IS one of these big questions that we truly are clueless about at this point,” says… May 10 23May 10, 2023Article at New Scientist
Origins: The first living thingHow did life on Earth start? To help answer that, researchers are trying to create some life for themselves.This is the second episode in our three-part series, Origins, about the beginnings and boundaries of life on Earth.For more, go to… Mar 08 23March 08, 2023Podcast at Unexplainable
What Earth’s mysterious infancy tells us about the origins of lifeEARTH is 4.5 billion years old. It formed at the same time as the sun and the other planets in our solar system when thousands of rocks, large and small, collided and merged. Then came a hammer blow. A smaller planet seems to have struck Earth with… Aug 08 22August 08, 2022Article at New Scientist
'Impossible' chemistry may reveal origins of life on EarthMarkus Ralser never intended to study the origin of life. His research focused mainly on how cells feed themselves, and on how these processes can go wrong in organisms that are stressed or ill. But about a decade ago, by sheer accident, Ralser and… Apr 04 22April 04, 2022Article at National Geographic
Here’s why scientists don’t know how life on Earth beganEarth is unlike any planet we know by virtue of hosting a rich variety of life. But experts are still unsure what got it started. Open your eyes anywhere on Earth and there is life: whether it’s a pigeon in the park or the invisible microorganisms… Oct 12 21October 12, 2021Article at BBC Science Focus
BBC Earth: The secret of how life on Earth beganThis story was originally published on the BBC Earth website on 31 October 2016. Sadly the BBC Earth website has been deleted, so the original version of this story is now only available via the Wayback Machine. I have reproduced it here - with notes… Jun 11 21June 11, 2021Article at michaelcmarshall.com
Water may be even more crucial to life than we thoughtWATER is essential for life as we know it, but why? A new analysis may rewrite the idea that it is solely the medium in which the reactions that drive life occur, instead viewing it as an active participant. The findings offer clues to the role that… Jan 20 21January 20, 2021Article at New Scientist
He may have found the key to the origins of life. So why have so few heard of him?Hungarian biologist Tibor Gánti is an obscure figure. Now, more than a decade after his death, his ideas about how life began are finally coming to fruition. Dec 14 20December 14, 2020PDF at National Geographic
He may have found the key to the origins of life. So why have so few heard of him?When biologist Tibor Gánti died on April 15, 2009, at the age of 75, he was far from a household name. Much of his career had been spent behind the Iron Curtain that divided Europe for decades, hindering an exchange of ideas. But if Gánti’s theories… Dec 14 20December 14, 2020Article at National Geographic
How the first life on Earth survived its biggest threat — waterMichael Marshall Michael Marshall is a science writer based in Devon, UK, and the author of The Genesis Quest. View author publications You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar On 18 February next year, a NASA spacecraft will… Dec 09 20December 09, 2020Article at Nature
