Scientists reveal the role of hidden microbes called Asgard archaea in the origins of complex life, challenging long-held views of evolution.

Finally, the three-domain structure of Woese's tree (Figure 1a) shows that evolutionary history is decoupled from biological organization. Indeed, archaea and bacteria appear very similar ...

New research sheds light on one of the biggest questions in biology: where did complex life come from? The answer may lie with Asgard archaea, a group of ancient single-celled microbes that share ...

In 2015, researchers examining deep-sea sediments near the underwater volcano Loki discovered gene fragments indicating a new and previously undiscovered form of microbes.

as well as in a few bacteria and archaea species, the new study establishes divergent transcription—the reading of genes in both directions—as a widespread feature conserved across all three domains ...

But phylogenetic analyses suggest that complex cells emerged from within the archaea. This results in two primary domains—bacteria and archaea—with eukaryotes being nested within archaea. “People were ...

The study has not yet been peer-reviewed. All life on Earth is classified within three domains — bacteria, archaea and ...

Like bacteria, archaea are single-celled organisms. Genetically, however, there are significant differences between the two ...