While NASA rovers on the surface of Mars look for hints of life, researchers back on Earth are studying ‘echoes of life’ from ancient basins – hoping that the two sites might be similar.
A new environmental record for a prehistoric site in Kenya helped researchers figure out how external conditions influenced which of our ancient ancestors lived there, with what way of life.
The analysis suggests that there was a mass extinction event at the time of the end-Permian, on land - and that it happened at the same time as the marine end-Permian extinction.
Evidence shows Native Americans in New England lived lightly on the land for thousands of years. It wasn’t until Europeans arrived that the landscape experienced major human impacts.
Did you recently hear news that Earth’s oldest pigments were hot pink? That’s not quite right. When they were in living bacteria a billion years ago, they were performing photosynthesis – and green.