"This experiment's never been run before on another world," said Amy Williams, an astrobiologist working on the Curiosity mission.

Scientists now believe that a burst of life known as a gamma ray may have helped play a vital role in the origins of life on Earth. Further, the finding may actually provide some clues as to how the ...

The Curiosity rover has uncovered the most diverse array of organic molecules ever found on Mars, including seven that had never been detected before on the red planet. These carbon-containing ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — A classic experiment proving amino acids are created when inorganic molecules are exposed to electricity isn’t the whole story, it turns out. The 1953 Miller-Urey Synthesis had two ...

A molecule so small it could fit on a Post-it note of genetic code has just pulled off something scientists have chased for decades: copying itself without any help from the protein machinery that ...

A much-debated theory holds that 4 billion years ago, give or take, long before the appearance of dinosaurs or even bacteria, the primordial soup contained only the possibility of life. Then a ...