Life on Earth had to begin somewhere, and scientists think that “somewhere” is LUCA—or the Last Universal Common Ancestor.

To help clarify this logic, think about the relationships within human families. The most recent common ancestors of both you and your siblings are your parents; the most recent common ancestors ...

By comparing the differences in their DNA, the researchers could work out how many mutations must have occurred since their most recent common ancestor. Dividing that number by the rate of ...

The most ancient fish were jawless, and since our whole group has jaws, we can safely choose a jawless fish as a fairly recent ancestor. Unfortunately, this ancestor is long dead. To compare ...

In this evolutionary tree, species A and B share a recent common ancestor. Species A is therefore most similar to species B. Species F and G also share a recent, common ancestor, however this ...

According to recent studies by the PanAsia SNP Project, the most recent common ancestors of Asians arrived first in India (olive green). Later, some of them migrated to Thailand, and South to the ...