Life is remarkably selective. Life relies on many molecules with what is termed “handedness”—they’re chemically identical but are mirror images of each other. Most chemical reactions will make a 50/50 ...

Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for revealing how tiny molecular differences can become ...

Could a small bias lead to life? Thinking about the origin of life from enantiomers, asymmetric organic synthesis, nonlinear ...

A 3-D thermal model identifies a ~ 4.33 Ga temporal “sweet spot” for life’s origin, when decreased bombardment enabled mild hydrothermal niches to support RNA World chemistry and stable biomolecule ...

Kagan and Kenso Soai have been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discoveries that explain how chemical asymmetry, ...

Conditions on early Earth may have become stable enough to sustain the chemistry associated with the origins of life around 4.33 billion years ago, according to new research co-led by Planetary ...

A 2.5-billion-year-old rock from South Africa's Gamohaan Formation. AI analysis suggests the dark structures preserved in the rock are the remains of a complex microbial community. Pairing ...

One of humanity’s most profound questions is whether life exists beyond Earth — and if so, what forms it might take. For decades, the search for life has often focused on finding conditions similar to ...

Life on Earth rests on a knife-edge of chemistry that could easily have tipped the other way. As geochemists reconstruct the planet’s birth, they are finding that a narrow band of oxygen conditions ...