A Canadian geologist may have found the earliest fossil record of animal life on Earth, according to a report published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Around a billion years ago, a region of ...

Being a scientist is much like being a lawyer. You painstakingly gather evidence to support an argument — though one rooted in the scientific method, not courtroom conjecture. According to new ...

Our new study reveals a different, often overlooked factor. Daily swings in oxygen levels on the shallow seafloor may have stressed early animals (the ancestors of all animal life today), pushing them ...

A spectacular fossil site in Canada contains 567-million-year-old creatures that may represent some of the earliest animals to move, reproduce sexually, and develop recognizable body plans. The ...

For more than 100 years, biologists have wondered why animals display different types of life cycles. Some species, like humans and most vertebrates, develop directly into a fully formed yet smaller ...

The newly discovered fossil records suggest that mold-like single-cell organisms "set the stage" for the animal kingdom to evolve, the researchers wrote in a new report, published in the journal ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Here's why Dickinsonia challenges our previously held ...

In a new paper published in the journal Life, William Bains and I make the case that complex, macroscopic life should be common in the universe. We added one caveat, however: The conclusion only ...