A collaborative team of scientists has discovered that life on Earth over three billion years ago relied on the metal molybdenum, which was incredibly scarce in the environment at the time. The study, published in Nature Communications, is the first to show that molybdenum was used by ancient life this far back in our planet’s history.
On Earth today, molybdenum helps speed up vital biochemical reactions in cells. The metal is a component of essential enzymes that drive several major biological reactions in organisms. This is not only important for individual organisms, but also biogeochemical cycles, such as the nitrogen cycle, which affect our entire planet. Without molybdenum, those important reactions could still happen in nature, but they would be too slow to sustain life.
“Molybdenum sits at the catalytic center of enzymes that run major carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur reactions,” explained Betül Kaçar, head of the Kaçar Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and senior author on the study. Kaçar leads MUSE, a NASA Interdisciplinary Consortia for Astrobiology Research (ICAR) at UW-Madison.
The Fermi Paradox is the question of why we haven’t been contacted by any extraterrestrial species. In a recent paper, astrophysicists analyzed the paradox by instead examining how civilizations with the ability to send signals through space might develop. Unfortunately for us, their findings are quite bleak – but let’s take a look anyway.
This video discusses the Fermi Paradox, questioning the absence of extraterrestrial life despite the vastness of the cosmos. The Milky Way has had billions of years to produce civilizations, so where is everybody? A new paper’s analysis suggests a concerning conclusion regarding this silence, prompting us to consider what the lack of alien life tells us about our universe. 🔭
A research team of Specially Appointed Associate Professor Harrison B. Smith of Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Institute of Science Tokyo and Specially Appointed Associate Professor Lana Sinapayen of National Institute for Basic Biology has developed a new approach to detecting life beyond Earth that does not rely on identifying specific biological markers. Instead, the study suggests that life may be detectable through patterns emerging across groups of planets, offering a new framework for astrobiology in situations where traditional biosignatures are ambiguous or unreliable.
“Asking the question of, where did the entire universe come from, is no longer a question for poets and theologians and philosophers. This is a question for scientists, and we have some amazing scientific answers to this question that have defied even the wildest of our expectations.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► / @bigthink Up next, The mind-blowing circle of life, explained by a biologist ► • The mind-blowing circle of life, explained… Ethan Siegel, theoretical astrophysicist and science communicator, author of the James Webb Space Telescope book, “Infinite Cosmos,” and writer of the science blog, “Starts With A Bang” joins us to explore the cosmic origins of our universe. Read Ethan’s companion article: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-ba… — Where did the entire universe come from? 0:57 — A question for scientists 1:43 — The quest for the beginning of the universe 2:21 — Hubble’s telescope 4:09 — Extragalactic objects 5:11 — Blueshifted vs redshifted 6:53 — General theory of relativity 7:50 — The cosmic egg 8:26 — The origin of The Big Bang 9:55 — A cosmological constant 14:24 — Scale invariant spectrum 15:13 — Testing for Cosmic Inflation 19:34 — Our cosmic origins 21:03 — Ethan Siegel, kilt influencer Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-t…
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About Ethan Siegel: Ethan Siegel is a Ph.D. astrophysicist and author of “Starts with a Bang!” He is a science communicator, who professes physics and astronomy at various colleges. He has won numerous awards for science writing since 2008 for his blog, including the award for best science blog by the Institute of Physics. His three books “Treknology: The Science of Star Trek from Tricorders to Warp Drive,” “Beyond the Galaxy: How humanity looked beyond our Milky Way and discovered the entire Universe,” and “Infinite Cosmos: Visions From the James Webb Space Telescope” are available for purchase at Amazon. Follow him on X @startswithabang.
Does Mars contain the building blocks for life as we know it? This is what a recent study published in Nature Communications hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated whether the surface of Mars could preserve evidence for life as we know it using experiments from one of its rovers. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand how and where to search for past evidence of life as we know it and comes as NASA is working to return samples from the surface of Mars.
For the study, the researchers examined data obtained from NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has been exploring Gale Crater on Mars since 2012. Recently, it used its cache of scientific instruments to identify more than 20 organic molecules from 3.5-billion-year-old Martian clays. These included a first-time identification of DNA precursors and specific chemicals that are delivered to planets via meteorites.
Cosmic strings may be ultra-thin defects in spacetime—relic “cracks” from the early universe. How we’d detect them, what they mean for physics, and how aliens might exploit them.
Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur. Watch my exclusive video Settling Saturn’s Rings: https://nebula.tv/videos/isaacarthur–… SFIA Merchandise: https://isaac-arthur-shop.fourthwall… 🌐 Visit our Website: http://www.isaacarthur.net ❤️ Support us on Patreon: / isaacarthur ⭐ Support us on Subscribestar: https://www.subscribestar.com/isaac-a… 👥 Facebook Group: / 1,583,992,725,237,264 📣 Reddit Community: / isaacarthur 🐦 Follow on Twitter / X: / isaac_a_arthur 💬 SFIA Discord Server: / discord Credits: Cosmic Strings – Cracks in the Fabric of the Universe Written, Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images Chapters 0:00 Intro — Cracks in the Fabric of the Universe 6:11 From Defects to Cosmic Strings 13:31 Civilizations and Cosmic Strings: Tools, Traps, and Temptations 19:43 Nebula 20:39 Cousins, Confusions, and What a Discovery Would Mean.
🛒 SFIA Merchandise: https://isaac-arthur-shop.fourthwall… 🌐 Visit our Website: http://www.isaacarthur.net. ❤️ Support us on Patreon: / isaacarthur. ⭐ Support us on Subscribestar: https://www.subscribestar.com/isaac-a… 👥 Facebook Group: / 1583992725237264 📣 Reddit Community: / isaacarthur. 🐦 Follow on Twitter / X: / isaac_a_arthur. 💬 SFIA Discord Server: / discord. Credits: Cosmic Strings – Cracks in the Fabric of the Universe. Written, Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur. Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images.
Chapters. 0:00 Intro — Cracks in the Fabric of the Universe. 6:11 From Defects to Cosmic Strings. 13:31 Civilizations and Cosmic Strings: Tools, Traps, and Temptations. 19:43 Nebula. 20:39 Cousins, Confusions, and What a Discovery Would Mean.
