All complex life forms on Earth, including plants and animals, are made up of eukaryotic cells; they are more sophisticated than bacterial or archaeal cells, which are prokaryotic. Eukaryotes have ...

Around 1.7 billion years ago, eukaryotes—the building blocks of complex life—first appeared on Earth, and now scientists have ...

In a new study, published in Cell, researchers describe a newfound mechanism for creating proteins in a giant DNA virus, comparable to a mechanism in eukaryotic cells. The finding challenges the dogma ...

Gene expression is linked to RNA transcription, which cannot happen without RNA polymerase. However, this is where the similarities between prokaryote and eukaryote expression end. Central to the ...

A giant virus discovered in Japan is adding fuel to the provocative idea that viruses helped create complex life. Named ushikuvirus, it infects amoebae and shows unique traits that connect different ...

The most widely accepted scientific explanation for the arrival of all complex life on Earth has had an unsolved mystery at its heart. According to the theory, all plants, animals and fungi, known ...

A bizarre bacteria has been discovered with an ability previously thought impossible for its kind. This strange discovery could shine a light on how some of our earliest single-celled ancestors formed ...

In many submerged regions, murky mud shelters strange life-forms that seem to be the key to one of the biggest mysteries of life on Earth. These creatures belong to a domain of life called the archaea ...

All modern multicellular life — all life that any of us regularly see — is made of cells with a knack for compartmentalization. Recent discoveries are revealing how the first eukaryote got its start.

In the oceans and on land, scientists are discovering rare, transitional organisms that bridge the gap between Earth’s simplest cells and today’s complex ones. By Carl Zimmer A flurry of new studies ...