How did life begin? How did chemical reactions on the early Earth create complex, self-replicating structures that developed into living things as we know them? According to one school of thought, ...

The reaction generates amino acids and nucleic acids, the building blocks of proteins and DNA. Four billion years ago, the Earth looked very different than it does today, devoid of life and covered by ...

A chemical reaction that gives flavour to cooked food may lock away millions of tonnes of carbon in the seabed each year. The process might even have helped create the conditions for complex life to ...

Four billion years ago, the Earth looked very different than it does today, devoid of life and covered by a vast ocean. Over the course of millions of years, in that primordial soup, life emerged.