Biogeochemical Cycles

How Plants May Have Helped Create Earth’s Unique Landscapes

3 Feb 2012

According to conventional thinking, plant life first took hold on Earth after oceans and rivers formed; the soil produced by liquid water breaking down bare rock provided an ideal medium for plants to grow in. It certainly sounds logical, but … Continue reading →

Scientists coax shy microorganisms to stand out in a crowd

2 Feb 2012

Scientists have advanced a method that allowed them to single out a marine microorganism and map its genome even though the organism made up less than 10 percent of a water sample teeming with many millions of individuals from dozens of identifiable groups of microbes.

Why we'll never find an exoplanet like Earth

2 Feb 2012

Evidence that plant life was a primary force that shaped Earth's surface is laid out in a new issue of Nature Geoscience. Because of that, the chance we'll find a similar world with a surface like our planet's is very small.