Earth's atmosphere transports tiny forms of cellular life, such as fungal spores, pollen, bacteria, and viruses. On their journeys, these microorganisms encounter challenging conditions such as cold ...

Five common microorganisms found on Earth could survive at the lunar south pole, a new study finds, presenting a ...

Microorganisms were the first forms of life on our planet. The clues are written in 3.5 billion-year-old rocks by geochemical and morphological traces, such as chemical compounds or structures that ...

Deep beneath the Earth's surface, in the pores and crevices of rock, live huge communities of microorganisms. They are invisible to the naked eye—yet they play a central role in the quality of our ...

Smithsonian scientists study saline lakes in the Chilean desert to travel back in time to ancient Earth and beyond Emma Saaty This saline pond system in the Salar de Llamara region of northern Chile’s ...

On a sweltering morning last July, Vernon Spear, a burly eighty-five-year-old with thinning gray hair, went to check a chicken-wire crab trap that was hanging from a dock in Cambridge, Maryland. Spear ...

A nutrient cycle refers to the exchange of organic and inorganic matter throughout an ecosystem, causing particular substances and elements to be sequestered, removed, recycled, and generated in the ...

From preserving our food to keeping us healthy, microorganisms are everywhere. Although they are primarily associated with causing disease, microorganisms such as bacteria have many applications and ...