A genomic atlas of Nematostella vectensis reveals how primitive animals created multiple cell types millions of years ago, ...

Researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) at the University of Oxford have uncovered a clue that may help to explain why the earliest evidence of complex ...

Earth’s first sponges may have been ghostly, soft-bodied pioneers—ancient animals that evolved long before their skeletons ...

A microorganism whose evolutionary roots can be traced to the era of the first multicellular animals may provide a glimpse of how single-celled organisms made a critical evolutionary leap. In ...

Once upon a time, there were a bunch of one-celled microbes, swimming, eating, reproducing, doing all the things that a one-cell bit of life can do. Then, some time later, there were their descendants ...

Bar-Ilan University study shows that even jellyfish and sea anemones repair DNA during repose, underscoring the fact that a ...

The origins of consciousness date back about 540 million years ago, when animal bodies became more complex. Feelings like pleasure and pain act as a "common currency" for decision-making, as we see in ...

The oldest fossilised remains of complex animals appear suddenly in the fossil record, and as if from nowhere, in rocks that ...

(CNN) — The story of two of the strangest animals on the planet just got a little stranger, thanks to clues revealed by a lone fossil specimen that scientists now say represents a long-extinct ...

An artist’s impression depicts Kryoryctes at Dinosaur Cove in Australia. New research supports the hypothesis that Kryoryctes is a common ancestor of both the platypus and echidna. - Peter Schouten ...

To understand the origins of multicelled life, researchers are studying a motley assortment of simpler animal relatives. The commonalities they’re unearthing offer a trove of clues about our mutual ...

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