"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Life on Earth had to begin somewhere, and scientists think that “somewhere” is LUCA—or the Last Universal ...

Four billion years ago, Earth was violent, hot, and unstable. Yet new research suggests that by then, life had already reached a surprising level of complexity. At that time lived the last universal ...

It may be hard to imagine complicated life forms on early Earth. Oxygen was low and asteroids may have been pelting the baby planet’s surface. Despite those harsh conditions, a microbe may have ...

Every organism alive on Earth, from oak trees to octopuses to the bacteria in our gut, belongs to a single extended family. Genetic evidence points back to one ancestral cell, a last common forebear ...

All life on Earth shares a common ancestor that lived roughly four billion years ago. This so-called “last universal common ancestor” represents the most ancient organism that researchers can study.

Life thrived on Earth far earlier than previously believed, flourishing under the harsh reign of the Hadean eon. LUCA—the last universal common ancestor—was even designed to fend off ancient viruses.

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All life on Earth can be traced back to a Last Universal Common Ancestor, or LUCA. A new study suggests that this organism likely lived on Earth only 400 million years after its formation. Further ...