Researchers found a new way to tell the difference between the chemicals of life and the chemicals of non-life...using machine learning!
Scientists are using computer programs to understand our early beginnings. Click on the link to see how they are doing it, and how they might discover the genetic chemistry of life in the cosmos!
How and why humans exist are questions that have challenged different cultures ever since the dawn of civilization. Many scientists have taken upon their shoulders the duty of answering these fundamental questions, coming up with several especially creative ideas over the past few decades. One prominent idea is that…
A study of burned and unburned cigarettes found that water chemistry and microbes living in Mediterranean beach sediments changed after 4 days of exposure to a cigarette filter.
Scientists used to think cysteine was required to manufacture itself. Turns out, it isn't. In fact, cysteine slows down the manufacture of itself. Go figure!
Many organisms live by breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide, and those that don’t often live by taking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. However, did you know that these aren’t the only ways life can survive? Researchers recently discovered Sulfurimonas marinigri, a species of bacteria that…
Have you ever driven past an old factory building and wondered what ever happened to the harsh chemicals that were used there? If you guessed that a lot of the chemicals ended up in the environment, you would be right. Many of these pollutants are what we refer to as “halogenated hydrocarbons”. These are molecules…
Cement is one of those common building materials that you can find just about anywhere. When the cement starts to get cracked, fixing it is generally an easy task that involves widening the crack slightly before filling it with more cement. Now, imagine having to fix cracking cement that is buried 1 kilometer (3281…
Sulfuric acid production by sulfur-oxidizing bacteria may be a solution to a long standing mining problem.
Parkinson’s disease currently affects over 10 million people worldwide, and in the United States approximately 60,000 people are diagnosed with the disease each year. It is a disease in which the brain cells, or neurons, that produce dopamine progressively die off over time. For this reason, it is known as a…