Scientists now believe life began long before LUCA. Older organisms, now vanished, passed on vital genetic tools. These 'pre-LUCA' ancestors developed complex biological functions. LUCA inherited ...

Researchers at the Whitehead Institute have found an easier way to create genetic variety in crops. Many food crops suffer from limited genetic variety after centuries of selective farming. This makes ...

"By following universal paralogs," says Kaçar, "we can connect the earliest steps of life on Earth to the tools of modern ...

Scientists call this speck LUCA — the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Since the concept of LUCA first emerged, it has ...

Life’s story may stretch further back than scientists once thought. Some genes found in nearly every organism today were already duplicated before all life shared a common ancestor. By tracking these ...

New research into "universal paralog" genes reveals that the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) was not the first spark of life, but a successor that inherited complex genetic tools from an even ...

Popular culture drums into us the theme that each person’s nature is different. So far, we are oddly selective. For example, the idea of a promiscuous nature is greeted much more warmly than the idea ...

Australians looking to learn more about their heritage through commercial ancestry websites could be helping police solve cold cases.

Numerous potential treatments for neurological conditions, including autism spectrum disorders, have worked well in lab mice ...

Some of Earth’s earliest microbes evolved the ability to use oxygen hundreds of millions of years before it accumulated in ...

Drinking two to three cups of coffee daily can reduce the risk of dementia by 18 percent and help preserve cognitive function. Consuming one to two cups of tea daily shows similar benefits, according ...

Apertura Gene Therapy, a biotechnology company developing next-generation AAV capsids for delivering genetic medicines, today ...