Ingredients for life revealed in meteorites that fell to Earth

Two wayward space rocks, which separately crashed to Earth in 1998 after circulating in our solar system's asteroid belt for billions of years, share something else in common: the ingredients for life. They are the first ...

Rubies on sapphire: Recipe for making crystals in flux

Crystals can be made artificially but a lot of energy is used to melt the ingredients together, and this can make them expensive. This problem can be overcome by using appropriate solvents. Called the flux method, crystals ...

Explainer: What is X-ray crystallography?

Around 100 years ago a father and his son in north England conducted an experiment that would revolutionise the way scientists study molecules. A refined version of their method still remains one of the most important tools ...

Microbial oasis discovered beneath the Atacama Desert

Two metres below the surface of the Atacama Desert there is an 'oasis' of microorganisms. Researchers from the Center of Astrobiology (Spain) and the Catholic University of the North in Chile have found it in hypersaline ...

Researchers make headway in desalination technology

Engineers at the University of Illinois have taken a step forward in developing a saltwater desalination process that is potentially cheaper than reverse osmosis and borrows from battery technology. In their study, the researchers ...

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