More than a mile beneath the ocean’s surface, as dark clouds of mineral-rich water billow from seafloor hot springs called hydrothermal vents, unseen armies of viruses and bacteria wage war.
The chemical reactions behind the formation of common metabolites in modern organisms could have formed spontaneously in the earth’s early oceans, questioning the events thought to have led to the […]
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have published details about how the first organisms on Earth could have become metabolically active. The results, which are reported in the journal Molecular […]
Life took root more than four billion years ago on our nascent Earth, a wetter and harsher place than now, bathed in sizzling ultraviolet rays. What started out as simple […]
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and Deep Space Network have uncovered evidence Saturn’s moon Enceladus harbors a large underground ocean of liquid water, furthering scientific interest in the moon as a potential […]
Deep-sea hydrothermal plumes–waters nearly two miles down in the ocean–are home to processes that effect life across the planet. However, high pressure and water temperatures that exceed 300 degrees Celsius […]
Alien planets circling the most common stars in the universe may often have strange lobster-shaped oceans on their surfaces, researchers in China now say. What the day side of a […]
In the mid-1970s, the first available satellite images of Antarctica during the polar winter revealed a huge ice-free region within the ice pack of the Weddell Sea. This ice-free region, […]
After a three-year overhaul and major upgrade, the United States’ deepest-diving research submersible, Alvin, has been cleared to return to work exploring the ocean’s depths. The sub has been out […]
Marine cyanobacteria are the tiny ocean plants that form the base of the ocean’s food chain. Other organisms feed on them and are nourished by the oxygen they provide. Marine […]
