Life may have emerged from a surprisingly simple network of chemical reactions long before cells or genes existed.

In a new book, astrophysicist Mario Livio describes how the existence of life on Earth can be traced back to an RNA-based “protocell.” The following is an excerpt from Is Earth Exceptional?: The Quest ...

The origin of life on Earth has been mulled over by scientists for centuries. We now know that life’s building blocks are RNA, amino acids, and cells. But if life originated from the primordial ooze ...

Two of the most intriguing questions in science are: How did life on Earth begin? and Is there life elsewhere in the universe? Given the enormous interest in these questions, you might expect that the ...