The chemistry of life’s emergence, the way merely organic, carbon-containing molecules begin linking up into large, self-replicating molecules like DNA and form life, remains a mystery, but scientists ...

Scientists now question how life’s building blocks first appeared before LUCA, reshaping our search for life beyond Earth.

The study of the origin of life and prebiotic chemistry seeks to elucidate how inanimate chemical systems transitioned into self‐sustaining, evolving entities. Research in this field integrates ...

The complex building blocks of life can form spontaneously in space, a new lab experiment shows.

Stanley L. Miller, an emeritus professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego whose famous laboratory experiments in 1952 demonstrated how the simple organic ...

“We usually think of water as so benign, but when it’s divided in the form of little droplets, water is highly reactive,” said Richard Zare, describing a line of laboratory work that moves electricity ...