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 ...

When you get infected with a virus, some of the first weapons your body deploys to fight it were passed down to us from our microbial ancestors billions of years ago. According to new research from ...

Scientists have found further evidence to support the idea that the primary two domains of life, the Archaea and Bacteria, are separated by a long phylogenetic tree branch and therefore distantly ...

Scientists describe a previously unknown phylum of aquatic Archaea that are likely dependent on partner organisms for growth while potentially being able to conserve some energy by fermentation. In a ...

Let’s say you’ve discovered a new bacterium or archaea and want to give it a name so that it can be classified and placed on the appropriate branch of the tree of life. According to the International ...

Defense systems found in all complex life on Earth came from "Asgard." The ancestor of plants, animals and fungi evolved around 2 billion years ago, likely from a group of complex microbes called ...

Earth’s hot springs and hydrothermal vents are home to a previously unidentified group of archaea. And, unlike similar tiny, single-celled organisms that live deep in sediments and munch on decaying ...

Current hypotheses suggest that all life on Earth evolved from a common ancestor that diversified into the variety of organisms seen today. Scientists propose that the eukaryotic branch of this family ...