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 ...

A team led by Brett Baker at the University of Texas at Austin has found that some Asgard archaea, the ancient microbial group most closely related to all complex life on Earth, carried the molecular ...

Complex cells are thought to be the result of a union between two ancient microorganisms, but scientists have long been ...

The structure of how DNA is stored in archaea makes a significant difference to how quickly it evolves, according to a new study by Indiana University researchers. The study, led by molecular ...

In the late 1970’s, our understanding of the tree of life was fundamentally changed with the discovery and recognition of Archaea, a third domain of life along with Bacteria and Eukarya. While ...

New genomic research shows some Asgard archaea, ancestors of plants, animals, and fungi, tolerated and used oxygen. The finding supports the idea that complex life arose after oxygen levels surged and ...

The genetic code is the recipe for life, and provides the instructions for how to make proteins, generally using just 20 amino acids. But certain groups of microbes have an expanded genetic code, in ...

Scientists have found further evidence to support the idea that the primary two domains of life, the Archaea and Bacteria, are separated by a long phylogenetic tree branch and therefore distantly ...

A schematic tree of life with the primary domains, the Archaea and Bacteria shown in purple and blue, respectively and the secondary domain, Eukaryotes in green. The figure highlights key nodes in the ...