To find out if we are alone in the galaxy, we will need to better understand what geochemical conditions nurtured the first life forms. What water, chemistry and temperature cycles fostered the ...

Scientists have debated where Prototaxites belong in the tree of life for over a century, but now a new study suggests it ...

Chemical analysis suggests the 400-million-year-old fossil Prototaxites was neither plant, animal or fungus – hinting at a ...

He called the organism Prototaxites, meaning “first conifer.” The name stuck, even though the fossil didn’t quite match any known trees. In fact, trees didn’t even exist during the Silurian period, ...

When scientists look to the skies for clues about life's origins, water is one of the first things they seek. Life, as it's understood today, requires water, making its cosmic origins a significant ...

But real lightning would have struck infrequently—and mostly in open ocean, where organic compounds would have quickly dispersed. If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning ...

First, organisms may not have sequestered and ... selection pressures that would likely have produced similar forms of life to those around us -- including humans.

First, he had traced the evolution of cellular ... biologists used the sequences of multiple genomes of diverse life-forms to construct and compare thousands of phylogenetic trees for individual ...