When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. In "One Hand Clapping," Nikolay Kukushkin traces the origin of human consciousness from the ...

Evolution is perhaps the most extraordinary story ever told—a tale spanning billions of years that connects every living thing on Earth through an intricate ...

There's a difference between knowing that something evolved and understanding why it stuck around. Most of the systems running your body right now weren't designed for the life you're actually living.

Scientists are trying to understand how complex life emerged on Earth about 2 billion years ago. Our microbial ancestors could be the key.

All complex biological systems—like the DNA, RNA and proteins constantly being copied and built within our cells—are prone to errors. That means as life evolved to be more elaborate, it also had to ...

Among the many misconceptions about evolution—“it’s only a theory”; “it works for the good of the species”—one is that evolution generates biological perfection. If only! In “The Evolution of ...

For decades, many scientists have relied on the "hard steps" model to suggest that intelligent life is rare — the improbable result of a series of unlikely evolutionary leaps. But new research by ...

We have only one example of biology forming in the universe – life on Earth. But what if life can form in other ways? How do you look for alien life when you don’t know what alien life might look like ...

Paleontologists who study earth’s ancient fossil record might not seem to be the obvious choice when asking about the prevalence of intelligent life in the cosmos. But paleontology, the study of ...

Yet modern biology has revealed that cells are preternaturally sophisticated assemblages — literally automated, miniaturized factories. How could the evidence have been overwhelming but now orthodoxy ...