Researchers investigating the origin of complex life on Earth appear to have solved a longstanding mystery at the heart of how animals, plants, and fungi evolved. To understand the conundrum, you must ...

A giant virus discovered in Japan is adding fuel to the provocative idea that viruses helped create complex life. Named ushikuvirus, it infects amoebae and shows unique traits that connect different ...

The most widely accepted scientific explanation for the arrival of all complex life on Earth has had an unsolved mystery at its heart. According to the theory, all plants, animals and fungi, known ...

Learn how oxygen’s early rise could have given complex life the energy boost it needed to evolve.

In his laboratory at the University of Poitiers in France, Abderrazak El Albani contemplates the rock glittering in his hands. To the untrained eye, the specimen resembles a piece of golden tortellini ...

Most days you move through the world without thinking about the invisible creatures that surround you. Yet one of them, a tiny marine organism called Solarion arienae, is quietly reshaping what you ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. A study led by researchers from the University of Sydney and the ...

The “Boring Billion” is an informal description of a billion-year-period of Earth history (1.8 billion to 800 million years ago) where tectonics, climate, and biological evolution remained ...