"The Giant Leap," by astrobiologist Caleb Scharf, is an optimistic account of our widening journey into the cosmos.

Like many of us, Earth bears old pockmarks. Our planet’s crust has a band of ancient craters that formed around 465 million years ago. The divots were created at a time when animals in the seas were ...

Ben Woodcroft receives funding from the ARC. Adrián A. Davín does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has ...

An artist’s impression depicts Kryoryctes at Dinosaur Cove in Australia. New research supports the hypothesis that Kryoryctes is a common ancestor of both the platypus and echidna. - Peter Schouten ...

Around 700 million years ago, Earth was a frozen, white sphere, its rocky surface buried kilometers under ice. Despite the barren landscape, the evolution of complex life in the oceans was about to ...

Top panel shows reconstructed sediment fluxes to the oceans vs diversity of marine animals. Bottom panel shows sediment cover in continental regions vs the long-term trend in land-plant diversity.

Previous models of Earth's recent (100 million years) geomorphology have been patchy at best. For the first time a detailed continuous model of the Earth's landscape evolution is presented, with ...

The earliest cells likely didn’t have membranes to separate and protect their components and chemistry away from a harsh surrounding environment. But they may have made do with rain. When you purchase ...

Late-stage planetary collisions reshaped Earth and its neighboring planets, delivering water, altering their atmospheres, and influencing their tectonics. New findings suggest these violent impacts ...