The Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has selected six papers published by PNAS in 2025 to receive the Cozzarelli Prize, an award that recognizes ...

A giant DNA virus pulled from a Japanese freshwater pond is forcing scientists to rethink how complex cells first acquired their defining feature: the nucleus. Named ushikuvirus, the newly ...

Every second, hundreds to thousands of molecules move through thousands of nuclear pores in each of your cells. A new high-definition view reveals the machine in action.

The story of life’s beginnings gets stranger when you look closely at viruses. These tiny entities seem to sit at the edge of ...

Our single-celled ancestor lived in a world without plants, animals or oxygen-rich oceans. Yet, this seemingly simple microorganism took the first steps toward complex life. From this ancestor emerged ...

The molecular building blocks that make up the cells of humans, animals and plants so sophisticated appear to be older than scientists previously ...

The origin of the nucleus remains hotly debated among scientists, but new imaging and genomic data are shedding light on this billion-year-old mystery.

Scientists are trying to understand how complex life emerged on Earth about 2 billion years ago. Our microbial ancestors could be the key.

Millions of years ago, the Earth was a barren, steamy ball over half a billion years ago, full of volcanic ash, vast oceans churning with chemical sou.

Eukaryotes—the building blocks of complex life—appeared on Earth 1.7 billion years ago, and now scientists have solved a longstanding riddle about their origin.

Around 1.7 billion years ago, eukaryotes—the building blocks of complex life—first appeared on Earth, and now scientists have ...

MIT researchers have uncovered chemical evidence suggesting that ancient sea sponges were among the first animals on Earth, ...