What drives us to send probes throughout the Solar System and rovers and landers to Mars? It's not cheap, and it's not easy.

Martian lake beds and deltas reveal the Red Planet’s watery past. But many puzzles remain, scientist Bruce Jakosky says.

NASA’s Curiosity rover has unearthed the largest organic molecules ever detected on Mars—possible fragments of fatty ...

A new study led by researchers at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at the Institute of Science, Tokyo, has uncovered a surprising role for calcium in shaping life's earliest molecular ...

From 6000 BC, the Chinese harvested salt crystals from Lake Yungchen which partially dried in the summer sun. Many other ...

How did life begin on Earth? It’s a big question, and scientists believe that the element phosphorus may have played a key role. Phosphorus is an important ingredient in DNA, RNA, and ATP—molecules ...

Findings about the chemical makeup of cave systems can teach us about life in places humans have yet to reach.

Large soda lakes - those without natural runoff - could have built and sustained extremely high concentrations of phosphorus.

“The law of the sea basically colonized [Pacific peoples’] ocean,” said Frank Murphy, a resident of French Polynesia who ...

A new 28-minute film explores the medical, social, political and ethical challenges of parenthood and child-rearing that ...

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The weirdest ways scientists are mining for critical minerals, ...

A photographer, an airline pilot, a ship’s captain and others reveal where you’ll find the most spectacular, intriguing and ...