Scientists are listening in on sperm whale conversations and studying Earth's strangest microbes to prepare humanity for first contact with extraterrestrial life.

For generations, science fiction has imagined what life might look like on other worlds. These aliens are fictional, sure, but some of them are informed by real evolutionary processes on Earth. That's ...

Early cinema depicted aliens as human-like for familiarity and practical reasons, but modern science fiction explores ...

By studying Earth's toughest microbes and complex animal "speech", scientists are reshaping how we search for – and may someday talk to – alien life.