Elon Musk says SpaceX’s Starship could become one of the most important milestones in the evolution of life, arguing the ...

Geerat Vermeij's latest book explores a new approach to thinking about the evolution of life through the accumulation of 'power,' defined as the ability of organisms to take up or expend energy. (UC ...

There are "costs of life" that mechanical physics cannot calculate. A clear example is the energy required to keep specific ...

Yet modern biology has revealed that cells are preternaturally sophisticated assemblages — literally automated, miniaturized factories. How could the evidence have been overwhelming but now orthodoxy ...

For decades, scientists assumed that life on Earth emerged through a chain of highly improbable flukes. But a new theory suggests it may have instead arrived just in time. When you purchase through ...

If all the world's a stage and all the species merely players, then their exits and entrances can be found in the rock record. Fossilized skeletons and shells clearly show how evolution and extinction ...

Paleontologists who study earth’s ancient fossil record might not seem to be the obvious choice when asking about the prevalence of intelligent life in the cosmos. But paleontology, the study of ...

Chris Impey receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. We have only one example of biology forming in the universe – life on Earth. But what if life ...

"The Giant Leap," by astrobiologist Caleb Scharf, is an optimistic account of our widening journey into the cosmos.

When Josefin Stiller was growing up in Berlin, she loved reading about Greek gods in an encyclopedia of mythology. She often lost track of their relationships, however—their feuds, trysts, and ...