Now open to the public, a demonstration version of the “Map of Life” is set to illustrate how all living things on the planet are distributed geographically. The researchers from Yale and their colleagues believe that this Google Maps based platform will help to identify and fill knowledge gaps in living species. A Yale-led research [...]

Scientists hope to place Curiosity on flat ground at the foot of Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater. Once in position, Curiosity will examine whether the area has ever presented environmental conditions favorable for fostering microbial life, including chemical ingredients for life and energy for life. One particular mountain on Mars, bigger than Colorado’s grandest, has [...]

While analyzing samples from carbon-rich meteorites with minerals that indicated they had experienced high temperatures, scientists found amino acids, which gives support to the theory that meteorites and comets assisted the origin of life. Creating some of life’s building blocks in space may be a bit like making a sandwich – you can make them [...]

It took two chilling decades, but the Russian team has finally broken into Lake Vostok, the largest of the lakes hidden under Antarctica’s ice, and the most deeply buried. Lake Vostok has been isolated for millions of years and it might contain specifically adapted microorganisms, that haven’t been seen on the surface of the planet [...]

Researchers from Imperial College London have been studying and analyzing individual particles of Martian soil that was collected during the 2008 NASA Phoenix mission to Mars. They believe that their research shows that liquid water has been on the surface of Mars for far too short a time for life to maintain a foothold on [...]

A team of Russian researchers is close to breaching into Lake Vostok, a prehistoric lake that’s been trapped deep beneath the Antarctic surface for the last 14 million years. Vostok is the largest sub-glacial web of more than 200 lakes, which are hidden 2.5 miles (4 km) beneath the surface. Some of these lakes were [...]

Based on the samples provided by U.S. Navy deep sea submersible Alvin, USC microbiologists discovered that life continues at hydrothermal vents even after they go dormant. Once the vents go cold, microbes that once feed on the hot fluid methane and sulfur are replaced by microbes that feed on the solid iron and sulfur that [...]

A controversial study from 2010 was relatively refuted by a group of scientists, trying to duplicate the findings that were published in Science. Researchers have been unsuccessful to reproduce the results from the study authored by Wolfe-Simon et al. The team was led by microbiologist Rosie Redfield from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver [...]

The evolutionary transition between single-celled organisms and multicellular life as we know it took several billion years to occur in nature, but under artificial pressure, evolutionary biologists have been able to make it happen in 60 days. Single-celled yeast became multicellular creatures, a crucial step for life’s progression, from algae and bacteria to more complex [...]

Good news today for fans of giant planets. Astronomers have found 18 new alien planets. They are all Jupiter-size gas giants that circle stars larger than our sun. This increases the number of planets (that we know about) that orbit massive stars by 50 percent. This discovery will help astronomers gain insight into how giant [...]

In the old days it used to be largely guess-work when determining which alien worlds might be most livable, but not anymore. These days we can be pretty sure which planets and moons are most likely to have life thriving on their surface or in their oceans. An international team has now come up with [...]