A new way to look for signs of ancient life on Earth and Mars
The Mars 2020 mission involves sending a rover, named Perseverance, to Mars to look for evidence of past life on that planet. Perseverance…
Category: Astrobiology & Space Science
How does life handle the harshness of space?
Experiments on the International Space Station found that lichens, a combination of algae and fungi, survived in space-like, flight, and…
Strange microbes found living in caves of sulfuric acid
Researchers studying a sulfuric acid cave in Italy are among the first to describe organisms found living in gypsum, an acidic mineral…
A new understanding of weather on Saturn
The Cassini spacecraft revealed the atmosphere of Saturn has large regions that don’t cycle to the poles and that the atmosphere is filled…
What can microbes teach us about life in extreme environments?
Microbes on Earth have adapted to survive in some pretty extreme locations. The extreme dryness of deserts, high salinity in salt deposits,…
Fungi influence the recovery of pollutants in the environment
Researchers found a hidden selenium cycle tied to manganese oxide minerals made by common soil fungi.
Which came first, the cysteine or the egg?
Scientists used to think cysteine was required to manufacture itself. Turns out, it isn't. In fact, cysteine slows down the manufacture of…
DNA evidence allowed biologists to identify a new type of bacteria
Based on new DNA results, the researchers were able to provide better classification of cyanobacteria.
Microbe lasagna tells us about what life was like billions of years ago
Sort of like a fossilized microbial lasagna, fossils called “stromatolites” are formed when layered communities of different types of…
Bacteria from the Black Sea Have an Unusual Diet
Many organisms live by breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide, and those that don’t often live by taking in carbon dioxide…