Nitrogen in ancient rocks a sign of early life

Nitrogen is one of the essential nutrients of life on Earth, with some organisms, such as the kinds of microbes found within the roots of legume plants, capable of converting nitrogen gas into molecules that other species ...

Light and air: Sunlight-driven CO2 fixation

(Phys.org)—The increased use of renewable energy sources, particularly sunlight, is highly desirable, as is industrial production that is as CO2-neutral as possible. Both of these wishes could be fulfilled if CO2 could ...

An energy-efficiency lead for nitrogen fertilizer production

Nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers are essential in modern agriculture and crucial to meeting the ever-growing global food demand. Nitrogen fertilizer, in the form of ammonia, is produced now in the same way that it has ...

Early Earth's atmosphere was less conducive to lightning

In 1952, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey made sparks fly in a gas-filled flask meant to reflect the composition of Earth's atmosphere around 3.8 billion years ago. Their results suggested that lightning could have led to prebiotic ...

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