Lightning reacts with minerals to create the building blocks of life
Scientists stimulated atmospheric gases with electricity and found they reacted with common salts and minerals to form complex chemicals…
Category: What happened in Earth’s past?
What was the Earth like a long time ago? What have archaeologists found? What was it like before life started? How did life come to be?
When did the Galápagos tortoises become giant?
Researchers analyzed new fossils from Ecuador that suggested the ancestors of Galápagos giant tortoises inhabited northern South America…
How complex life arose under extreme stress
Scientists discovered molecules that helped the first complex life forms build strong cell membranes to withstand extreme environments.
Remains of the Moon could be lurking inside Earth
Scientists used models to test whether remnants of the moon-forming impactor, Theia, are present deep within the Earth.
Researchers used bottled “lightning” to make ingredients for life
Scientists used spark discharge experiments to test whether lightning converted enough nitrogen to a usable form to support the origins of…
How quickly did life recover from the end-Permian mass extinction?
Paleontologists described exceptionally well-preserved fossils of a complex marine ecosystem that developed within 1 million years of a…
Scientists found a new way diamonds are made and destroyed
Geologists examined CT images of diamonds from southern Africa to determine what happens to them underground.
How did nautiloids survive extinction?
Researchers found nautiloids outlived other shelly creatures in the late-Cretaceous extinction because they had slower metabolisms.
A trilobite’s last supper
Paleontologists described a trilobite fossil preserved in 3D with its gut contents intact.
How do mountains affect Earth’s climate?
Scientists showed sulfuric acid formed during weathering of rocks causes mountains to consume less greenhouse gasses than they previously…