A recent international study, led by Associate Professor Henrik Drake from Linnaeus University, has uncovered groundbreaking evidence that microorganisms lived deep beneath Greenland’s rocky surface 75 million years ago. This research offers new insights into the history of the “deep biosphere”, a hidden world of life existing far beneath the Earth’s surface. The deep biosphere […]
Life
Iron Was The First and Only Metal of Life’s Origin
Life as we know it relies on small quantities of metals to perform essential biological functions like breathing, DNA transcription, and energy conversion. Since the earliest forms of life floated in Earth’s primordial oceans, metals have played a crucial role in these processes. Almost half of the enzymes—proteins that drive chemical reactions within cells—require metals […]
Scientists Reveal how the First Cells on Earth May Have Formed
About 4 billion years ago, Earth started developing the right ingredients for life. Scientists who study how life began wonder what chemicals were present back then. They want to know if the chemistry of early Earth was anything like what living things need today. They do know that spherical blobs of fats called protocells came […]
NASA’s Perseverance Rover May Have Found Life on Mars
The NASA Perseverance rover has been exploring Mars’ Jezero Crater since 2021, and its latest discovery provides strong evidence that the crater once held a lake billions of years ago. Using its onboard radar instrument called RIMFAX, Perseverance was able to see over 20 meters below the surface and identify distinct layers of sediment deposited […]
Dinosaurs could exist on other planets, which scientists believe would be easier to detect than modern Earth
Using historical Earth models, Cornell University scientists suggest that dinosaurs or large, complex life could exist on exoplanets with high oxygen levels, guided by identifiable “sunlight fingerprints”.
Scientists Uncover a Novel Energy Metabolism that Could Sustain Life on Extraterrestrial Planets
Scientists have stumbled upon a groundbreaking discovery that might hold the key to life beyond Earth. Let’s rewind to the late ’80s when a scientist doodled some calculations on paper. This scientist figured out that turning a chemical called phosphite into phosphate could release enough energy to power a tiny organism. Imagine this microorganism being […]
Microfossils Reveal Rise in Complexity of Life Linked to Oxygen Increase
Scientists have found clues in ancient rocks that suggest life on Earth became more complex at the same time oxygen levels increased in the atmosphere and oceans. The rocks contain tiny fossils called microfossils that are over 2.4 billion years old. By studying these microfossils, researchers learned that complex life may have evolved earlier than […]