This is the first posting on the Simulating Life's Origins column. Not much more to say here except to test whether this feature is working!

Microbiologists have discovered a central metabolic pathway in microorganisms and the microorganisms use this pathway to survive under extremely salty conditions, like the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is…

Even for a physicist, this is bad: Larry Moran, in preparation for the appropriate dose of ridicule that this situation deserves, quotes physicist and pop-science author Paul Davies: Another…

A 30,000-year-old finger bone found in a cave in southern Siberia came from a young girl that was neither an early modern human nor Neanderthal, but instead belonged to a previously unknown group of…

Recently, a question kept me wondering: Why aren't there salt water frogs? This is an honest and humble personal question because I have not really done any research on this and primarily because I…

580 million years ago, life on Earth began a rapid period of change called the Cambrian Explosion, defined by the birth of new life forms over many millions of years that ultimately helped bring…

Researchers say they have uncovered a clue that may help to explain why the earliest evidence of complex multicellular animal life appears around 550 million years ago, after atmospheric oxygen…

What is the basis of distinction in each of the four steps? This is the five kingdom classification given by scientist Whittaker (1969).This scheme was based on - Structure of Cells - {prokaryotic…

Our body is a constant reminder of the fact that we share our origins with many other species, as Neil Shubin describes it so well in his book “Your inner fish”. The basic plan for members has…

Some people might suggest the nautilus as the ancestor of modern squid, since they're the only "ancient-looking" cephalopods most of us have seen. But the lineage that led to modern nautiluses and…