New method reveals chemical signs of early microbial life in ancient Earth rocks, showing photosynthesis evolved much earlier than believed.

Scientists have uncovered the earliest chemical evidence of life on Earth, in a discovery that could revolutionise our understanding of how ancient molecules evolved. As part of a groundbreaking study ...

The question of when life began on Earth is as old as human culture. “It’s one of these fundamental human questions: When did life appear on Earth?” said Professor Martin Whitehouse of the Swedish ...

A new study uncovered fresh chemical evidence of life in rocks more than 3.3 billion years old, along with molecular traces showing that oxygen-producing photosynthesis emerged nearly a billion years ...

Earth's earliest life left behind very few chemical traces. Fragile remains, like ancient cells and microbial mats, were buried, squeezed, heated, and broken apart by the planet's shifting crust ...

New method also detects molecular signs of photosynthesis almost 1 billion years earlier than previously documented; Combining chemistry and AI, pioneering method could revolutionize search for ...

Ancient duplicated genes are giving scientists their first real clues about what life was like before all life on Earth ...