New microfossils suggest earlier rise in complex life

Microfossils from Western Australia may capture a jump in the complexity of life that coincided with the rise of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere and oceans, according to an international team of scientists.

Boosting survival of a beneficial bacterium in the human gut

The microbes that inhabit the gut are critical for human health, and understanding the factors that encourage the growth of beneficial bacterial species—known as "good" bacteria—in the gut may enable medical interventions ...

Shedding light on the origin of complex life forms

How did the complex organisms on Earth arise? This is one of the big open questions in biology. A collaboration between the working groups of Christa Schleper at the University of Vienna and Martin Pilhofer at ETH Zurich ...

When was the first time life began to prey on each other?

Using the word predation may seem surprising when we talk about the first organisms that set out to eat other organisms, for they were not deadly predators with sharp teeth and claws, but small single-celled life forms that ...

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