Learn how one-celled organisms, or single-celled organisms, helped build complex life.

Ushikuvirus is a newly identified giant virus that infects amoebas, adding to a growing group of oversized viruses that scientists believe may have played an important role in the emergence of complex ...

A new study theorizes that evolution ticks at different speeds, especially when a big group of organisms first appears.

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 ...

Exceptionally preserved fossils from the Ediacaran period challenge what scientists thought was possible in sandstone. In the fossil record, creatures without hard shells or skeletons, such as ...

The evolution of intelligent life around red dwarf stars is likely to be an uphill slog, due to the demands needed to jumpstart oxygenic photosynthesis. Given that red M-dwarf stars are by far the ...

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 ...

Assembly Theory is a way to understand how the complexity of life emerged through a mechanism of “self-assembly.” It could explain how life formed on Earth—or other planets—via the shortest path to ...

For decades, many scientists have relied on the "hard steps" model to suggest that intelligent life is rare — the improbable result of a series of unlikely evolutionary leaps. But new research by ...

In a blow to anyone dreaming that complex life may exist elsewhere in the universe, a new study suggests we're unlikely to ...