Asteroid 'time capsules' may help explain how life started on Earth
In popular culture, asteroids play the role of apocalyptic threat, get blamed for wiping out the dinosaurs - and offer an extraterrestrial source for mineral mining.
In popular culture, asteroids play the role of apocalyptic threat, get blamed for wiping out the dinosaurs - and offer an extraterrestrial source for mineral mining.
Space Exploration
Feb 17, 2018
30
290
Chemists based in Munich have demonstrated that the alternation in wet and dry conditions on early Earth could have been enough to kick off the prebiotic synthesis of the RNA nucleosides found in all domains of life.
Biochemistry
Feb 9, 2018
3
11
When trying to understand the origins of life on Earth, researchers run into a paradox: while water is an indispensable solvent for all known life forms that exist today, water also inhibits the formation of string-like chains ...
Research by a University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) graduate student Mojtaba Fakhraee and Associate Professor Sergei Katsev has pushed a major milestone in the evolution of the Earth's environment back by about 250 million ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 25, 2018
2
77
RNA was probably the first informational molecule. Now, chemists from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have demonstrated that alternation of wet and dry conditions could have sufficed to drive the prebiotic ...
Biochemistry
Jan 18, 2018
0
43
When searching for life, scientists first look for an element key to sustaining it: fresh water.
Space Exploration
Dec 20, 2017
25
936
A new article in Astrobiology, "The Coevolution of Life and Environment on Mars: An Ecosystem Perspective on the Robotic Exploration of Biosignatures," is available online today and in the January, 2018 issue.
Space Exploration
Dec 19, 2017
0
62
Laboratory experiments on Earth can now simulate the conditions under which life might emerge on Saturn's moon Enceladus, as well as other icy alien worlds, according to new research published in the September 2017 issue ...
Space Exploration
Dec 1, 2017
0
82
The amount of biomass - life - in Earth's ancient oceans may have been limited due to low recycling of the key nutrient phosphorus, according to new research by the University of Washington and the University of St. Andrews ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 27, 2017
1
98
Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a compound that may have been a crucial factor in the origins of life on Earth.
Biochemistry
Nov 6, 2017
17
2251