The earliest forms of animal life on our planet continue to fascinate scientists, who are seeking to unravel the mystery of their origins. A team of geochemists from MIT recently provided new clues by ...

Tom has a Master's degree in Journalism. His editorial work covers anything from archaeology and the environment to technology and culture. Tom has a Master's degree in Journalism. His editorial work ...

In a discovery that reshapes our understanding of life’s origins, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have found new evidence suggesting that the first animals on Earth were ...

A team of scientists digging up some of the Earth’s oldest rocks has uncovered new chemical evidence that Earth’s first animals were likely ancestors of the modern sea sponge. The discovery relies on ...

Humans have long imagined life on Mars, but what if the red planet actually delivered life to Earth in the first place?

New reconstructions of 540 million years of climate history show the planet tumbling between icehouse and hothouse states, revealing how rare and vulnerable our temperate moment is. Some 4 billion ...

"This is the story of Earth like you’ve never seen it before—from the first spark of life to prehistoric monsters to the rise of humans… and all the weird stuff in between." We live on a magnificently ...

New research from Japan's iron-rich hot springs shows how early microbes may have harnessed iron and oxygen during the Great Oxygenation Event. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn ...

A team of MIT geochemists has unearthed new evidence in very old rocks suggesting that some of the first animals on Earth were likely ancestors of the modern sea sponge. In a study appearing today in ...