Experiments reveal that unsaturated lipid membranes promote vesicle fusion and DNA retention during freeze–thaw cycles, highlighting icy environments as potential drivers of protocell evolution. Today ...

“We usually think of water as so benign, but when it’s divided in the form of little droplets, water is highly reactive,” said Richard Zare, describing a line of laboratory work that moves electricity ...

“Microlightning” exchanges among water droplets could have sparked the building blocks of life on ancient Earth, new research finds. Here, a wave breaks on White Sand Beach on the Thai island of Koh ...

Building on the original Miller-Urey experiments, new work shows that some ingredients of the "primordial soup" came from a thoroughly unexpected place. The results may have implications for our ...

Soda lakes might hold the key to the emergence of life on Earth. These unique environments could have concentrated the phosphorus necessary for the first prebiotic chemical reactions. Phosphorus is a ...

Ultimately, the gel-first hypothesis does not claim to provide a definitive answer to the origin of life. Rather, it offers a conceptual framework—one that integrates soft-matter physics, systems ...

The origin of life could therefore be closely linked to the special environment of large soda lakes, which, due to their geological setting and phosphorus balance, provided ideal conditions for ...

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. “It’s alive! IT ...

In the 1931 movie “Frankenstein,” Dr. Henry Frankenstein howling his triumph was an electrifying moment in more ways than one. As massive bolts of lightning and energy crackled, Frankenstein’s monster ...