"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Most scientists agree that complex life likely formed during the Ediacaran Period some 600 million years ...

A new study theorizes that evolution ticks at different speeds, especially when a big group of organisms first appears.

Life on Earth. Where did it come from? How long has it existed here? While we're still searching for the answers to one of those questions, scientists think they might have discovered the answer to ...

The newly discovered fossil records suggest that mold-like single-cell organisms "set the stage" for the animal kingdom to evolve, the researchers wrote in a new report, published in the journal ...

The origins of complex, nucleated cellular life – everything from amoebas to humans – may date back a lot further in Earth's history than we thought. A new study tracing the earliest steps toward ...

A study led by researchers from the University of Sydney and the University of Adelaide has revealed how the breakup of an ancient supercontinent 1.5 billion years ago transformed Earth's surface ...

Researchers have discovered that a single-celled organism, a close relative of animals, harbors the remnants of ancient giant viruses woven into its own genetic code. This finding sheds light on how ...

Ancient glaciers reshaped Earth’s surface and shifted ocean chemistry, fueling the rise of complex life, a new study found. Calved icebergs from the Twin Glaciers are seen in 2013 off Greenland's ...

The evolution of complex life is strictly dependent on mitochondria, the tiny power stations found in all complex cells, according to a new study by Dr Nick Lane, from UCL (University College London), ...

A new model suggests that inhospitable hydrodgen-sulphide rich waters could have delayed the spread of complex life forms in ancient oceans. The research, published online this week in the journal ...

The team has proposed a new evidence-based scenario for the emergence of complex life they have called ‘CALM’ - Complex Archaeon, Late Mitochondrion. Complex life began to develop earlier, and over a ...