In the strange, dark world of the ocean floor, underwater fissures, called hydrothermal vents, host complex communities of life.
Micro-organisms persisting deep below the seafloor for millions of years continue to evolve despite living at the energy limit to life.
New research may provide a breakthrough for scientists to understand life in the harshest of environments. Scientists from Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences studied microorganisms from an underwater mountain in […]
Oxygen is essential for the development of higher life. However, it was hardly present in the oceans of the young Earth. It was not until the evolution of photosynthetic bacteria […]
With no dissolved oxygen to sustain animals or plants, ocean anoxic zones are areas where only microbes suited to the environment can live. “You don’t get big fish,” said UC […]
The hypothesis that one or more biodiversity drops in the Phanerozoic eon, evident in the geological record, might have been caused by the most powerful kind of stellar explosion so […]
This is a community draft white paper for submission to the Decadal Survey in Planetary Science and Astrobiology, reflecting the views of the NASA Astrobiology Program’s Research Coordination Network for […]
Why do carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere wax and wane in conjunction with the warm and cold periods of Earth’s past? Scientists have been trying to answer this question […]
The COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder that we move through a world shaped by unseen life. Bacteria, viruses, and other microscopic organisms regulate the Earth’s vital functions and resources, […]
A team of oceanographers are heading out on a voyage of discovery this month, exploring in detail for the first time a hydrothermal vent field in the Arctic Ocean. They […]
