Bacteria are the most diverse organisms on Earth, with a number of species that’s difficult to quantify. They’re also incredibly old. Bacteria consist of a single cell. They do not have bones and are ...

Stars that pass by our solar system have altered the long-term orbital evolution of planets, including Earth, and, by extension, modified our climate. "Perturbations—a minor deviation in the course of ...

See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. Life on Earth may exist thanks to a brief faltering in our planet's ...

A landmark study into the geological timescale distribution of sediment and nutrients over 500 million years shows that species biodiversity on Earth is driven by landscape dynamics. Movement of ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. The chemistry of crystals in some of Earth’s oldest rocks may ...

Earth's surface is the living skin of our planet—it connects the physical, chemical and biological systems. Over geological time, this surface evolves. Rivers fragment the landscape into an ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Evolution is a long, slow and continuous experiment where ...

A new SwRI-led paper highlights the scientific progress made in understanding the evolution of terrestrial planets, including the effects of late large impacts on pre-existing modes of tectonics. For ...

Late-stage planetary collisions reshaped Earth and its neighboring planets, delivering water, altering their atmospheres, and influencing their tectonics. New findings suggest these violent impacts ...

Over millions of years, the Earth’s upper layers have performed a dance that has created mountains, volcanoes, continents, ridges and ocean trenches. Tectonic plates play a key role in this process.