South Africa is home to some of the oldest evidence of life on Earth, contained in rocky, often layered outcroppings called microbialites. Like coral reefs, these complex “living rocks” are […]
Contrary to popular belief, the interstellar medium (ISM) is not empty; it is filled with atoms, dust particles, and molecules.
Elements from the group of rare earth metals are of great importance today, also in technical applications. The Bioinorganic Chemistry group at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) is conducting diverse […]
Life has a way of bouncing back, even after catastrophic events like forest fires or volcanic eruptions. While nature’s resilience to natural disasters has long been recognized, not much is […]
Iron-rich minerals, such as hematite (α-Fe2O3), are prominent constituents of the Martian surface; they are considered to be potential indicators of past aqueous activity and habitability.
Most theoretical work on the origin of heredity has focused on how genetic information can be maintained without mutational degradation in the absence of error-proofing systems. A simple and parsimonious […]
Viruses play essential roles in shaping the structure and function of microbial communities, including those inhabiting extreme environments.
On Mars, the amount of ultraviolet C (UVC) radiation that reaches the surface is sufficiently deleterious for life as we know it.
Biological activity has shaped environments across Earth with varying degrees of impact throughout geological time, which complicates efforts to distinguish signs of life in preserved structures.
A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine identifies the highest priority science objectives for the first human mission to Mars, and says searching for evidence […]
