Is Earth’s water why intelligent life evolved here?
A Columbia University scientist argued that the existence of humans provides strong evidence that intelligent life is more likely to evolve…
Category: Big Questions
Plants changed the chemistry of magmas
Researchers used isotopes in magmatic minerals to demonstrate that continental magmas altered globally around 450 million years ago…
How did land plants change rivers?
Scientists studied meandering rivers across the globe to establish how they responded to the evolution of land plants.
Clay minerals suggest a warm, wet past for Mars
Researchers studied clay deposits on Mars using tools aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and found evidence for a warm and humid past…
Characterizing galaxies at “cosmic noon”
Astronomers studied 3 galaxies that formed 2 to 3 billion years after the Big Bang to calculate how much gas, stars, and dark matter they…
Does the Arctic Ocean regulate or amplify global warming?
Researchers found that interactions between methane gas and seawater affected greenhouse gas emissions from the Arctic Ocean during a past…
Upcycling polystyrene with sunlight and sulfur
Researchers in China developed a rapid, solar-driven process that transforms waste polystyrene and excess sulfur into chemicals used in…
Magma rapidly rises to Earth’s surface as Africa splits in two
Researchers analyzed timescales preserved in crystal growth zones and found that magma beneath Ethiopia rises dozens of miles to the surface…
Searching for planets in a galaxy far away
Researchers surveyed over 20,000 stars thought to come from a nearby galaxy and found that no more than 1% harbored close-orbiting,…
Why the 2023 El Niño broke records
Researchers found that the 2023 El Niño event was fueled primarily by heat stored in the ocean rather than in Pacific winds.