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Home > News > Tags > life
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A few years ago, a large controversy was set in motion in the international scientific community about the possible existence of fossilized life forms in a Martian meteorite that crash-landed in Antarctica. The piece of rock, known as ALH 84001, was then believed by some to contain certain proof that life existed on ... |
28 November 2009
04:46 GMT |
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Over the years, numerous initiatives that sought to find alien civilizations have appeared around the world. These groups benefit from powerful telescopes and transmitters and constantly broadcast messages that contain our location into deep-space. But for a while, some voices have been arguing that the codes sent in... |
24 November 2009
07:06 GMT |
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Researchers proposed a long time ago that atmospheric pressure might be one of the key factors determining the habitability of Earth-like planets. Over geological timescales, of millions to billions of years, variations in this pressure may be what determines a planet's ability to foster primitive life. A new st... |
17 November 2009
03:22 GMT |
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There are many people in the world today that wish nothing more than to live a long and healthy life, perhaps even reaching the venerable age of 100 years old. A new investigation reveals one of the key elements that make this possible, in the form of an inherited cellular repair mechanism that is able to do its job ... |
13 November 2009
03:42 GMT |
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Even though it's not exactly certain at this point that life exists on other worlds, astronomers are already planning to detect advanced civilizations, maybe similar to our own in advancements. There are numerous proposed methods of scanning exoplanets for signs of life, ranging from establishing the chirality, ... |
19 October 2009
05:07 GMT |
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In spite of the fact that most of the space probes, landers, orbiters and rovers we send out into the solar system pass through extensive cleaning stages, there is always the risk of them carrying some organisms from the Earth on another celestial body. Experts warn that this is to be avoided at all costs, most impor... |
16 October 2009
06:57 GMT |
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Google Books manages to stay in the news for two very different reasons. One is that it's one of the search giant's most controversial products, stirring up a lot of attention from government officials, competitors and all manner of organizations. The other reason is that Google is always adding new feature... |
24 September 2009
08:52 GMT |
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Biologists and other scientists have been studying the origins of life as we know it for a very long time, and, for good or for worse, they have an idea about the chain of events that led to the development of the first organisms, and eventually to the emergence of the more complex species. But now, experts at an Aus... |
18 September 2009
09:01 GMT |
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Studying the particular molecular orientation, or the “handedness,” of organic molecules is one of the fields of study that hold the promise to answering one of humankind's basic questions, namely where we came from. For a long time, astronomers have known that certain celestial bodies, comets includ... |
18 September 2009
01:26 GMT |
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For a long time, researchers have been fascinated with how complex life was able to evolve in the first place. From the primordial soup, a mix of amino-acids and basic RNA molecules, proteins, and eventually more complex structures developed, over millions and billions of years. Expert Stanley Miller was the first to... |
31 August 2009
16:41 GMT |
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According to a new, extensive study of fossils left behind by microorganisms living billions of years ago, when life first appeared, it would seem that early life not only replicated and multiplied, as first believed, but that it was also united to form the basis for the appearance of the most developed organisms in ... |
20 August 2009
02:57 GMT |
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The concept of urban metabolism is not by far a new one. Scientists have proposed that similarities exist between the world's megacities and living organisms for a long time, but now reports on how human settlements function are drawing more and more parallels to the living world. The comparisons, experts say, m... |
19 August 2009
04:41 GMT |
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Over the past years, a significant portion of the international astronomical community has come to the conclusion that life on our planet must have originally come from comets. Of course, it is not talking about bacteria or other types of microorganisms, but about the chemicals that were needed for the initial reacti... |
18 August 2009
18:01 GMT |
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For a few decades, those believing that the chances for life elsewhere in the Universe are small have made circulate a theory that backs up their claims, known as the anthropic argument. Essentially, it states that the period of time it takes life to evolve is longer than the period in a star's life when it can ... |
13 August 2009
21:01 GMT |
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Astronomers and planetary scientists have for a long time known that various types of stars are very important in determining a planet or moon's chances of ever harboring life. The age of the star is also an immensely-important factor, mostly because young stars generate massive amounts of harmful radiations, wh... |
11 August 2009
09:16 GMT |
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Over the past couple of years, as vast amounts of scientific data on the Red Planet became available to research groups, scientists were overjoyed at noticing traces of methane on the surface of our neighbor. This was important because it implied biological sources – such as decomposing organisms – could ... |
6 August 2009
17:51 GMT |
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Since our planet was first created some 4.5 billion years ago, numerous things had to fall in place for life to appear. And when it did, it apparently not only spread, but broke out with incredible power and energy. Of course, there were hitches along the road, some of them major (five clearly established extinction ... |
9 July 2009
09:32 GMT |
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After carefully assessing a large number of landscape features on the surface of Mars, astronomers and geologists have concluded that the recent past of our neighboring planet was a lot more wetter than it is now. Admittedly, there is currently no liquid water to be found, but billions of years ago, rivers and deltas... |
30 June 2009
06:41 GMT |
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Saturn's moon Titan is perhaps the best bet in the solar system of finding life, researchers have hypothesized since evidence of liquids was found on its surface. With its thick atmosphere, albeit made of gases that would kill humans almost instantly, the natural satellite is 80 times more massive than the Moon,... |
26 June 2009
03:46 GMT |
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The Cassini-Huygens space probe is arguably one of the most important missions NASA ever sent out into the solar system, in terms of return benefits and information accuracy. The craft has thus far managed to discover new moons around Saturn, and to offer invaluable scientific data on interesting natural satellites s... |
25 June 2009
03:39 GMT |
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The Earth is the only known place in the Universe that is rich and abundant as far as life forms go, and this has become more than clear with recent discoveries. Studies have shown that bacteria, microbes and other basic microorganisms manage to survive in the harshest of conditions, inside volcano craters and near h... |
23 June 2009
16:01 GMT |
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It is widely accepted that the Universe exploded into existence some 13.7 billion years ago, when the Big Bang created the first light and the first amounts of matter, which then immediately started expanding. Over millions of years, galaxies and black holes began to differentiate, and, after the reionization stage e... |
18 June 2009
19:01 GMT |
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In their search for life on other planets outside the solar system, astronomers may as well take into account another limiting factor. Even if they find something on an exoplanet that is within its star's habitable zone, they have to ensure that the planet is not tidally locked and that the right amount of volca... |
16 June 2009
03:00 GMT |
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In their search for life on other planets, researchers are always hindered by a single fact – they don't know what life in other planetary conditions than those of the Earth may look like. Different pressure and atmospheric surroundings may affect the development of even the most basic forms of life on exo... |
15 June 2009
03:47 GMT |
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The most important evolutionary step in the history of life on Earth was not the emergence of the first life forms, but the time when the intermediary between lifeless chemicals and biological materials appeared. Self-assembling molecules made it possible for a process of trial and error to begin, which eventually re... |
12 June 2009
02:56 GMT |
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Cicadas, which are relatively harmless insects, are also some of the most bizarre in the world. They live either 13 or 17 years, to the minute, and do not come out of the ground for about 99 percent of their life span. But when they do, they come out all at once, with as much as 40,000 of them emerging from under a s... |
19 May 2009
16:31 GMT |
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Searching for life outside our planet is not a very easy task, especially on account of the distance between ourselves and the next possibly populated world, but also because there exists a great possibility that all other life forms detected there could have a significantly different inner structure and organization... |
19 May 2009
01:52 GMT |
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Experts at the University of Manchester have made an important breakthrough in studying the origins and evolution of life, when they synthesized the basic elements of ribonucleic acid (RNA), the connecting link between pre-biotic molecules and the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The find is very important because, until... |
14 May 2009
03:56 GMT |
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More than 2.75 billion years ago, our planet wasn't anything like the cradle of life it is today. The very tiny amount of organisms that were able to withstand living without oxygen, and under direct bombardment from ultraviolet (UV) radiation were hiding on the ocean floor, deep down underground, or were produc... |
10 May 2009
05:43 GMT |
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Mission planners currently designing there-and-back missions to Mars are faced with a very serious issue that has nothing to do with the impact of long-term isolation on astronauts, or with how to power up a spacecraft able to reach the Red Planet. In short, they are trying to determine how to suppress ATP molecules,... |
8 May 2009
10:56 GMT |
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Recent studies, focused on finding the best hypothetical places where life could exist in the Universe, seem to point out the fact that orange dwarfs are the most suitable locations for the emergence of basic life forms, or maybe even of complex ones. Astronomers say that the habitable zones – as in the areas a... |
7 May 2009
18:21 GMT |
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Since the beginning of the human race, people have looked at incoming comets as telltale signs of either a god's will, or an omen of an imminent catastrophe. Rooted in popular culture, the celestial bodies have gained a negative reputation over the years, as being able to destroy all life on Earth. This line of ... |
29 April 2009
14:01 GMT |
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Over the recent years, an increased number of concepts referring to the “handedness of life” have begun to appear, and in areas of research few would have thought possible. For instance, astronomers are now working with scientists on the creation of a new means of looking for life on other planets, throug... |
28 April 2009
20:01 GMT |
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Located on an orbit between Mars and Jupiter, the Ceres dwarf planet is about 950 kilometers in diameter, and totals about 32 percent of the mass present in the inner asteroid belt. Astronomers believe that its surface is covered in water ice and various hydrated minerals, and this knowledge has recently sparked an i... |
17 April 2009
03:41 GMT |
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According to the latest researches coming in from NASA, the Phoenix Mars Lander may have descended right in the middle of a terrain that is extremely microbe-friendly. The most recent investigations seem to hint at the fact that the entire region, just below the planet's North Pole, is or was able to sustain lif... |
31 March 2009
03:43 GMT |
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Recent discoveries on Mars seem to hint that active muddy volcanoes still exist on the Red Planet, which would mean that its core is not completely dead, as first thought. If this is the case, than it could be generating warmth and lava movements, either deep inside or just under the surface. Warmth has the potential... |
21 March 2009
05:49 GMT |
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One of the greatest mysteries associated with the origin of life is how the right chemicals came to be bound together in a seemingly perfect way and then simply started to live. Amino-acids are at the base of all living creatures, but the conditions that have led to their appearance are still unclear. One researcher ... |
20 March 2009
04:15 GMT |
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At the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life conference, which took place in Florence, Italy, an astronomer proposed a somewhat unusual location of where life might have originated from. University of Giessen scientist Joop Houtkooper told colleagues and attendants that life on Earth might have re... |
5 March 2009
09:25 GMT |
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Over the past few years, evidence that water once flowed on Mars has been pilling up, and with it the idea that the Red Planet might have been able, at one point in its history, to sustain at least basic forms of life. Now, following a new scientific study, researchers believe they are very close to identifying porti... |
5 March 2009
02:39 GMT |
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Even though it may sound like something that comes out of the science-fiction books, the NASA American space agency and the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) initiative, along with scientists, psychologists, ethicists, lawyers, representatives of the media and anthropologists, have recently held a thre... |
19 February 2009
09:31 GMT |
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The news came as a shock even to scientists gathered in Chicago at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Arizona State University physicist professor Paul Davies said that “weird life” might be hiding right here on Earth, and that people needn't go as f... |
17 February 2009
08:13 GMT |
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Over the years, and especially starting with the late 18th century and early 19th century, theories of how life came to be moved outside the church's sphere of influence, and into the realm of science. Although this should have brought forth a new age in knowledge, based on facts and not on fantasy, that was har... |
6 February 2009
02:15 GMT |
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The CoRoT satellite, a joint initiative of several European countries and the European Space Agency (ESA), discovered a new Sun-like star, which closely resembles the way our own Sun must have looked like during its early stages of evolution. The new celestial body, dubbed CoRoTExo-2a, is estimated to be about 500 mi... |
23 December 2008
04:06 GMT |
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In their search for habitable worlds, astronomers felt the need to have a clear delimitation among the various classes of planets, but one that was much smaller-scaled than divided them according to what they were made of or according to their size. Thus, the new model was born, which catalogued only those celestial ... |
19 December 2008
08:37 GMT |
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Now that the Phoenix Mars Lander is defunct and the mission is officially over beyond all hope, scientists have been able to focus on the data that the device has collected and relayed to us. The main source of interest is represented by the water found in the region of the landing site, but a series of examinations ... |
16 December 2008
08:31 GMT |
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Modern vision perceives asteroids more as a threat than as anything else. Plans are being made to track the movements of near-Earth objects, to detect those that may be on collision courses with our planet and to intercept those that might prove hazardous. But it hasn't always been so, shows a recent experiment,... |
9 December 2008
03:57 GMT |
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Dark matter continues to remain just that elusive kind of matter much more present than regular one throughout the universe and which has not been observed directly yet. But some progress is being made, at least theoretically speaking, which bodes well for dark matter, since it is a theoretical item. The latest quest... |
8 December 2008
06:00 GMT |
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An international team of astronomers has managed to detect the presence of a sugar molecule in the outer space. The chemical compound is known to be among the few primal building blocks that form life, and thus the discovery proves to be highly important in the search for Earth-like planets where life could appear an... |
26 November 2008
10:18 GMT |
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Although the science of rocks is regarded as a dull, boring field, there's much more to it than just looking at an inert stone formation. Minerals are intimately linked to a planet's evolution and, moreover, to the emergence and development of life. In fact, this goes both ways, as minerals and life affect... |
14 November 2008
06:06 GMT |
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While it is commonly accepted that life sparked from a pre-biotic state of chemical compounds that somehow mixed up in an organic form, what exactly caused this whole complex process to occur is still subject to speculation. Water and electricity (from thunders) are the two most circulated factors that appear to have... |
3 November 2008
06:43 GMT |
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