New evidence shows the first building blocks of life on Earth may have been messier than previously thought

By Caitlin McDermott-Murphy

When the Earth was born, it was a mess. Lightning storms and meteors likely bombarded the planet’s surface, a barren wasteland with little but chemicals present. How life formed amid such chaos is a mystery billions of years old. Now, a new study offers evidence that the first building blocks may have matched their environment, evolving in a less orderly way than...