Hyperthermophilic archaea are true survival experts. They thrive in boiling hot springs and deep-sea vents—environments ...

Pyrrolysine is an important component of methyltransferase enzymes, which the archaea use to metabolize methylamine in the environment. “The need for that metabolism and availability of the machinery ...

Sperm and egg cells, or gametes, are unusual. Egg cells are some of the largest cell types, and sperm are some of the smallest. In humans, these haploid cells come together to form diploid cells. It's ...

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 ...

Scientists have been trying to learn more about archaea since these microbes were discovered in the 1970s. Their DNA is not contained in a nucleus, so they are a type of prokaryote, and were initially ...

How heat-loving archaea adapt their cellular machinery to survive, and why this may be important for vaccine development. Prof. Dr. Dina Grohmann Lehrstuhl für Mikrobiologie & Archaeen-Zentrum & ...

An artist’s depiction of an Asgard archaeon, based on cryo-electron tomography data: the cell body and appendages feature thread-like skeletal structures, similar to those found in complex cells with ...

Microbes that look like strange deep-sea creatures are turning out to be a missing link in the story of how we got here. There’s a mystery at the roots of the tree of life. There is a hole in the ...

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 ...