A discovery by a South Korean research team suggests that impact-generated lakes may have fostered early oxygen-producing life.
From the first botanical characterization of cyanobacteria about two centuries ago to contemporary studies, only two categories of extracellular UV-screening pigments have been considered: scytonemin which is very well described […]
Rock-dwelling chlorolichens and cyanobacteria provide most of the total biomass of the ice-free zone of Antarctica, i.e., the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV), and yet, the water sources of MDV are […]
Current paradigms for the origin and evolutions of life and the environment on early Earth have been based on the premises that carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen gas (N2) were […]
We analyzed the lipidome of the endolithic community in halite nodules from Salar Grande in the hyperarid Atacama Desert, which is considered an analog for martian subsurface environments.
Photosynthetic bacteria helped shape Planet Earth. Among them are cyanobacteria that produced the oxygen in our atmosphere and made complex life possible, captivating scientists for decades. Now, researchers at the […]
Cyanobacteria and eukaryotic microalgae (collectively referred to here as ‘microalgae’) represent early-evolving oxygenic phototrophs and are widely considered ideal candidates for bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS) due to their high […]
Vertical transmission of marine particles brings ocean surface cyanobacteria into the deep ocean, where heterotrophic cyanobacterial lineages probably evolve to adapt to new environments even in oxygen-depleted zones.
Terraces near Flamencos Lagoon in the southeastern Salar de Pajonales (Chile), located at 3,517 m above sea level in the arid Altiplano, host relic gypsum stromatolites and crusts formed under […]
![[LEFT] Occurrence of bd-type oxygen reductase in a dated tree of life. Branches in the dated tree of life obtained from Mahendrarajah et al. [81] are colored according to the presence (turquoise) or absence (gray) of bd-type oxygen reductase. Eukaryotes were not included in the analysis and are therefore colored in higher gray tones, as are taxa that were not present in the comparative dataset. Dark blue dots at nodes represent possible origins of bd-type oxygen reductase. Purple bars represent the percentage of strains within the taxa that have reductases. [RIGHT] Occurrence of HCO oxygen reductase in a dated tree of life. Branches in the dated tree of life obtained from Mahendrarajah et al. [81] are colored according to the presence (yellow) or absence (gray) of HCO oxygen reductase. Eukaryotes were not included in the analysis and are therefore colored in higher gray tones, as are taxa that were not present in the comparative dataset. Brown dots at nodes represent possible origins of HCO oxygen reductase. Purple bars represent the percentage of strains within the taxa that have reductases. -- Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Bioenergetics](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Oxygen-Reductase-Origin-Followed.png?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1)
The history of Earth’s atmospheric oxygen is a cornerstone of evolutionary biology. While unequivocal evidence for an increase in atmospheric O2 marks the Great Oxidation Event (GOE) roughly 2.4 billion […]
