Researchers have uncovered a remarkable fossil site in a remote part of Canada’s Northwest Territories, offering unprecedented insight into the earliest evolution of complex animal life on Earth. Findings from the site represent life from the Ediacaran biota—soft-bodied organisms that lived on the seafloor more than 500 million years ago—and push back the origins of animal movement and sexual reproduction by 5-10 million years.

A new study from the University of Copenhagen shows that marine heatwaves can disrupt microscopic moving structures on the surface of reef-building corals that support their oxygen uptake. When seawater temperature crosses a critical threshold, this oxygen supply mechanism collapses, increasing the risk of coral death.

The earliest known eukaryotes, the ancestors of all complex life on Earth, lived in oxygenated, shallow marine environments nearly 1.7 billion years ago, according to a new study led by researchers at McGill University and the University of California, Santa Barbara. The findings cast doubt on the long-held belief that early complex life emerged in oxygen-poor environments or floated freely in the open ocean.