News
First Direct Evidence Suggests the Universe’s Primordial Soup Behaved Like a Liquid
4+ hour, 42+ min ago (486+ words) Learn how physicists recreated the early universe's primordial soup, known as quark-gluon plasma, and discovered how it responds when particles race through it. Right after the Big Bang, the universe existed as an ultra-hot, ultra-dense fluid made of quarks and…...
Earth’s Ancient Sky May Have Supplied Ingredients for Life Before It Began
1+ mon, 4+ week ago (410+ words) Learn how sulfur-based molecules essential to life may have formed before the first living systems appeared. Rather than being confined to rare, extreme environments, some of life's chemical building blocks may have been widespread under ordinary atmospheric conditions. Sulfur sits…...
Unique Protein That Helps Tardigrades Endure Deadly Radiation Could Help Us Fight Cancer
2+ mon, 3+ week ago (651+ words) Learn how tardigrades are able to tolerate extreme radiation with a unique protein that unwinds their DNA. Tardigrades, the microscopic animals popularly known as "water bears," have rightfully earned their reputation as the most sturdy organisms in the world. They're…...
Our Prehistoric Ancestors May Have Snacked on Mushrooms Just Like Some Primates Do Today
4+ mon, 3+ hour ago (566+ words) Mushrooms can be a divisive food for some people, but our distant primate relatives would have a different opinion on the matter. Non-human primates are known for their love of fruit, leaves, and insects as snacks, but surprisingly, some of…...
Ice Could Generate Electricity, Making it a Low-Cost Source of Energy
4+ mon, 1+ week ago (482+ words) It is a well-known fact that water and electricity do not mix, but new research suggests ice is a flexoelectric material " which, in layman's terms, means it can produce electricity. "We discovered that ice generates electric charge in response to…...
Petrichor, the Smell of Rain, Has A Lot of Science Behind It
4+ mon, 1+ week ago (657+ words) The smell of rain is known as petrichor, a term derived from petro " meaning rock " and ichor " meaning tenuous essence. The smell is generated from an oncoming rainstorm. However, if the ground is too wet and saturated already, the sent…...
Chemistry in Earth's Ancient Pools May Unlock the Mystery of Life's Origins
4+ mon, 3+ week ago (617+ words) Life runs on proteins, large chains of amino acids that keep our bodies functioning. Yet for decades, scientists have wondered how they were first created to set biological life in motion 4 billion years ago. Based on a recent experiment that…...
The First Molecule in the Universe That Helped Make the Earliest Stars Was Just Recreated
5+ mon, 3+ week ago (709+ words) It's safe to say that our existence wouldn't be possible without molecules. Even beyond all the matter on Earth, molecules are what shaped the Universe into what it is today. But what was the first molecule to lay the foundation?...
Building Blocks of Life in Deep Space Could Mean Life Extends Further Than Once Thought
6+ mon, 1+ day ago (511+ words) Astronomers have detected precursors to the building blocks of life on the discs of V883 Orionis, a young star located 1,305 light-years from Earth in the constellation Orion. Scientists writing in The Astrophysical Journal Letters warn that the evidence collected so far…...