In a Fierce Desert, Microbe ‘Crusts’ Show How Life Tamed the Land
At first glance, the grit crust could seem like a routine example of what researchers call a biological soil crust, or “biocrust”—a community of coexisting...
Tag : earth science
A New Tool for Eruption Forecasting: Carbon-Catching Drones
She and her team flew these drones while they were standing inside the crater to compare faraway atmospheric measurements with those closer to the source....
Life Helps Make Almost Half of All Minerals on Earth
“Each one of those kinds of pyrite is telling us something different about our planet, its origin, about life, and how it’s changed through time,”...
Why the Search for Life on Mars Is Happening in Canada’s Arctic
Only the hardiest organisms can thrive in one of the coldest springs on earth. That’s why in the summers of 2017 and 2019, Lyle Whyte...
Astronomers Radically Reimagine the Making of the Planets
Start at the center, with the sun. Our middle-aged star may be more placid than most, but it is otherwise unremarkable. Its planets, however, are...
The Wetlands Are Drowning
Schoenoplectus americanus, or the chairmaker’s bulrush, is a common wetland plant in the Americas, and it has an existential problem. It has chosen to live...