Challenging long-held assumptions, Aarhus University researchers have demonstrated that the protein building blocks essential for life as we know it can form readily in space. This discovery, ...

We live in a golden age for space exploration. Scientists are gathering massive amounts of new information and scientific evidence at a record pace. Yet the age-old question remains unanswered: are we ...

When searching for signs of life on planets outside our Solar System, sometimes nothing is almost as good as something. Even a lack of biosignatures on examined exoplanets can still tell us a lot ...

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 ...

Daniel Brady Mills receives funding from the German Research Foundation. Jason Wright works for Penn State University, where his research in the search for life in the universe is supported by ...

Researchers in the field of synthetic biology are still a long way from being able to assemble living cells from scratch in the laboratory. But according to biochemist David Deamer of the University ...

Hints of ancient microbes in Martian rocks and a revived theory about our cosmic ancestry are forcing scientists to rethink where the story of life really began. Instead of a warm little pond on early ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American I don't often write about my own research on ...

Maikel Rheinstadter receives funding from the National Science and Engineering Council Canada (NSERC), the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Province of Ontario and McMaster University..