Scientists in Japan have discovered a previously unknown giant virus, offering new insight into this enigmatic category of ...

A microorganism that is a proposed relative of our cellular ancestors has been grown successfully in the laboratory. Its internal architecture offers clues to the early evolution of eukaryotic cells.

Prokaryotic cells, which include all bacteria and archaea, are ancient, and relatively simple compared to eukaryotic cells, which are found in fungi, plants, and animals. Scientists have long sought ...

The chemical reactions on which life depends need a place to happen. That place is the cell. All the things which biology recognises as indisputably alive are either cells or conglomerations of cells ...

Scientists have identified tubulin structures in primitive Asgard archea that may have been the precursor of our own cellular skeletons. In 2010, biologists made a shocking discovery. Living in the ...

When you get infected with a virus, some of the first weapons your body deploys to fight it were passed down to us from our microbial ancestors billions of years ago. According to new research from ...

What is the last common ancestor of all plants and animals? Where did complex life come from and when? Scientists have been trying to answer these questions for many years. A new finding has changed ...

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 ...

Prokaryotic single-celled organisms, the ancestors of modern-day bacteria and archaea, are the most ancient form of life on our planet, first appearing roughly 3.5 billion years ago. The first ...

A new study provides unprecedented insights into the cellular architecture of over 200 species of plankton using ultrastructure expansion microscopy. Dudin had been working with this particular group ...