Prokaryotic cells, which include all bacteria and archaea, are ancient, and relatively simple compared to eukaryotic cells, which are found in fungi, plants, and animals. Scientists have long sought ...

Eukaryotes—fungi, plants, us—are complex. Our large cells are characterized by their different compartments, many of which are neatly enclosed within a boundary of membrane. These compartments contain ...

The Archaea was recognized as a third domain of life 40 years ago. Molecular evidence soon suggested that the Eukarya represented a sister group to the Archaea or that eukaryotes descended from ...

The first single-celled organisms with a nucleus originated more than a billion years later than biogeochemical evidence had previously indicated. In contrast to prokaryotes such as bacteria, ...

A lot happened in the hundreds of millions years separating the first and last eukaryotic common ancestors, but when and how most features arose remains a mystery. Eukaryogenesis is broadly defined as ...

The origin of eukaryotes is considered one of the greatest enigmas in biology: according to current doctrine, two prokaryotes, a so-called Asgard archaeon and a bacterium, are believed to have merged.

“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, ...

New insights have been gained from the most comprehensive tree of prokaryotic life assembled to date, report scientists. Bacteria were the original masters of their domain, having Earth to themselves ...

All modern multicellular life — all life that any of us regularly see — is made of cells with a knack for compartmentalization. Recent discoveries are revealing how the first eukaryote got its start.

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The church publishes the ...

Cells with nuclei are known as eukaryotic cells, the cells that make up animals, plants and yeast. The nucleus is the organelle that contains the majority of the cell's genetic material, where it is ...