Amber Dance is an award-winning freelance science journalist based in Southern California. After earning a doctorate in biology, she re-trained in journalism as a way to engage her broad interest in ...

Scientists reveal the role of hidden microbes called Asgard archaea in the origins of complex life, challenging long-held ...

New research sheds light on one of the biggest questions in biology: where did complex life come from? The answer may lie ...

According to this latest study, all complex life forms (a.k.a. eukaryotes) trace their roots back to a common ancestor among a group of microbes called the Asgard archaea.

ETH researchers discovered related structures in Asgard archaea and describe their structure. These experiments show that ...

Ten years ago, nobody knew that Asgard archaea even existed. In 2015, however, researchers examining deep-sea sediments discovered gene fragments that indicated a new and previously undiscovered form ...

“This is the most exciting and important paper on big questions about eukaryotic origins and the tree of life in years,” said evolutionary biologist Jeffrey Palmer of Indiana University, Bloomington, ...

Defense systems found in all complex life on Earth came from "Asgard." The ancestor of plants, animals and fungi evolved ...

Asgard archaea emerged as a key piece in the puzzle of how complex life evolved, acting as a potential link between simple archaea and eukaryotes—organisms like plants and animals whose cells contain ...