Tiny microbes belching toxic gas helped cause—and prolong—the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history, a new study suggests.
Earth Sciences
Dec 20, 2021
3
763
For the first 2 billion years of Earth's history, there was barely any oxygen in the air. While some microbes were photosynthesizing by the latter part of this period, oxygen had not yet accumulated at levels that would impact ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 14, 2022
2
874
A USC-led research team has found that marine microbes with a special metabolism are ubiquitous and could play an important role in how Earth regulates climate.
Environment
Aug 7, 2019
0
288
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at MIT and Brown University studying how marine bacteria move recently discovered that a sharp variation in water current segregates right-handed bacteria from their left-handed brethren, impelling ...
Soft Matter
Apr 15, 2009
0
0
Phosphorus is one of the most common substances on Earth. An essential nutrient for every living organism—humans require approximately 700 milligrams per day—we are rarely concerned about consuming enough of it because ...
Earth Sciences
May 14, 2015
1
73
(Phys.org)—There is evidence that some microbial life had migrated from the Earth's oceans to land by 2.75 billion years ago, though many scientists believe such land-based life was limited because the ozone layer that ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 24, 2012
0
0
Prochlorococcus are the smallest and most abundant photosynthesizing organisms on the planet. A single Prochlorococcus cell is dwarfed by a human red blood cell, yet globally the microbes number in the octillions and are ...
Ecology
Jan 3, 2022
1
519
Apparently, there just aren't enough genomes for Craig Venter to sequence here on Earth, so he's making plans to send a DNA sequencer to Mars.
Space Exploration
Oct 19, 2012
18
0
Oxygen-starved ocean "dead zones," where fish and animals cannot survive, have been expanding in the open ocean and coastal waters for several decades as a result of human agricultural and industrial activity. Trying to predict ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 31, 2022
0
101
Bacteria swim by rotating the helical, hairlike flagella that extend from their unicellular bodies. Some bacteria, including the Escherichia coli (E. coli) living in the human gut, have multiple flagella that rotate as a ...
General Physics
Jul 8, 2013
0
0
