The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. For a molecule of RNA, the world is a dangerous place. Unlike DNA, which can persist for millions of years in its remarkably stable, ...
Oceans churned with lava. Air filled thick with smoke. Asteroids stormed down incessantly. Life during the Hadean Eon four billion years ago was a struggle, and yet that was when it began. 1,2 With no ...
Researchers demonstrated how amino acids could spontaneously attach to RNA under early Earth-like conditions using thioesters, providing a long-sought clue to the origins of protein synthesis. This ...
The mystery of why life uses molecules with specific orientations has deepened with a discovery that RNA—a key molecule thought to have potentially held the instructions for life before DNA ...
Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. NASA astronauts took this ...
A forested hill and clouds are in the background of an image of a shallow pool of steaming water, with the ground underneath colored in shades of beige, red, and brown. Life may have first emerged in ...
More than four billion years ago, Earth was a very different place. Pools of water froze and thawed in cycles, minerals shaped reactions, and molecules bumped into each other by chance. Out of this ...
Some 39,000 years ago, a woolly mammoth died in present-day Siberia, destined to be blanketed by ice and permafrost that would end up preserving its body — even down to the hair and muscle. Now, that ...
Some results have been hidden because they may be inaccessible to you
Show inaccessible results