Just as species are thought to have evolved over time, the individual molecules that form the basis of life also likely developed in response to natural selection, scientists say. Life on Earth first bloomed around 3.7 billion years ago, when chemical compounds in a “primordial soup” somehow sparked into life, scientists suspect. But what turned…
Atmospheric oxygen really took off on our planet about 2.4 billion years ago during the Great Oxygenation Event. At this key juncture of our planet’s evolution, species had either to learn to cope with this poison that was produced by photosynthesizing cyanobacteria or they went extinct. It now seems strange to think that the gas…
Considered to be one of the greatest scientists of all time, Sir Isaac Newton was also an influential theologian who applied a scientific approach to the study of scripture, Hebrew and Jewish mysticism. Now Israel’s national library has digitized Newton’s theological collection — some 7,500 pages in his own handwriting — and put it online….
Unexpected new findings by a University of Maryland team of geochemists show that some portions of the Earth’s mantle formed when the planet was much smaller than it is now, and that some of this early-formed mantle survived Earth’s turbulent formation, including a collision with another planet-sized body that many scientists believe led to the…
Earth is the planet of the plants—and it all can be traced back to one green cell. The world’s lush profusion of photosynthesizers—from towering redwoods to ubiquitous diatoms—owe their existence to a tiny alga eons ago that swallowed a cyanobacteria and turned it into an internal solar power plant. By studying the genetics of a…
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson relates his personal story of how he became a scientist and his peak spiritual experiences in doing science—including his comprehension that “we are made of stardust!”
Astronomers have found black holes and supermassive black holes. But the discovery of a mid-size black hole could support the idea that supermassive black holes grow by eating others.
The rogue proteins behind variant CJD, the human form of mad cow disease, have revealed their benign side. Prions, it seems, lie at the heart of a newly discovered form of near-instant evolution that provides life with a third way to adapt to potentially lethal environments. Crucially, it involves neither genetic nor epigenetic changes to…
Earth started as a violent place, its surface churned by continuous volcanic eruptions and cloaked in an atmosphere that would have been poisonous to today’s life-forms. Furthermore, the thin primeval atmosphere may have provided only scant protection from the young sun’s harsh ultraviolet glare. Given these inhospitable conditions, scientists have long wondered: How did the…
The video below, from Kosovo 2.0, is a remarkable 21-minute example of how this story encircles the globe — and can delight children everywhere. The children journey through the countryside around Kosovo, as the 13 billion year epic of their ancestry is laid out proportionally over the miles.