Researchers used bottled “lightning” to make ingredients for life
Scientists used spark discharge experiments to test whether lightning converted enough nitrogen to a usable form to support the origins of…
Category: Big Questions
How quickly did life recover from the end-Permian mass extinction?
Paleontologists described exceptionally well-preserved fossils of a complex marine ecosystem that developed within 1 million years of a…
Scientists found neutron stars merge to make heavy elements
A team of astrophysicists in China simulated collisions between the remains of former stars and showed the resulting explosions could…
What’s making Earth’s atmosphere drier?
Scientists investigated humidity patterns in tree rings across Europe to test whether recently drier air is natural or caused by global…
Could “iron snow” fuel life in Europa’s ocean?
Scientists calculated that microorganisms breathing iron oxide “snow” could produce enough energy to survive on Jupiter's icy moon…
What causes brain fog in long COVID patients?
Researchers found the COVID-19 virus causes inflammation that disrupts a patient’s blood-brain barrier and contributes to brain fog.
Can scientists predict catastrophic floods?
Researchers showed river structure and moisture conditions can help predict large-scale flood events.
The universe’s dust is on the decline
Astronomers found the density of dust in the universe has been steadily decreasing for the last 10 billion years, as it coalesced to form…
Scientists found a new way diamonds are made and destroyed
Geologists examined CT images of diamonds from southern Africa to determine what happens to them underground.
How did nautiloids survive extinction?
Researchers found nautiloids outlived other shelly creatures in the late-Cretaceous extinction because they had slower metabolisms.