When scientists describe “Earth-like” planets, the phrase often brings to mind worlds scattered across the galaxy, quietly ...

Across astronomy and astrobiology, a quiet but profound shift is underway. Instead of assuming the galaxy teems with ...

A popular model of evolution concludes that it was incredibly unlikely for humanity to evolve on Earth, and that extraterrestrial intelligence is vanishingly rare. But as experts on the entangled ...

Intelligent life may develop on planets as a rule, not an exception — increasing the odds of humanity existing beyond Earth, according to a new study. Researchers from Penn State University proposed ...

"The fact that we don't see anything out there means that if they did exist, they vanished long ago and their signatures have decayed away." When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an ...

Paleontologists who study earth’s ancient fossil record might not seem to be the obvious choice when asking about the prevalence of intelligent life in the cosmos. But paleontology, the study of ...

WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Roughly 300,000 years ago, our species first appeared on the African landscape before spreading globally and coming to dominate the planet. All this happened about 4.5 ...

For decades, many scientists have relied on the "hard steps" model to suggest that intelligent life is rare — the improbable result of a series of unlikely evolutionary leaps. But new research by ...

Imagine if the genetic deck had been shuffled slightly differently as some of the earliest life forms began their evolutionary paths. Might a creature just as smart as us -- or even smarter -- have ...

Daniel Brady Mills receives funding from the German Research Foundation. Jason Wright works for Penn State University, where his research in the search for life in the universe is supported by ...