While humans have an esthetic liking for symmetry in everything, nature prefers asymmetric, single-handed forms when it comes to amino acids—the building blocks of proteins, and, by extension, all ...

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.

From the 1950s to 1970s, discovery of enzymes began by identifying new chemical reactions within cell-free extracts, but ...

Everything on Earth is made of atoms, most of which are closely packed together in the form of minerals. Life has its uses for minerals—ask a coral reef—but its essence lies in atoms arranged as ...