Life in the dark and deep
There are plenty of places on Earth that seem alien to us. The deep sea is a perfect example: it’s been said that we know more about Mars than we do about the bottom of the ocean. Hydrothermal vent communities weren’t discovered until 1977, well after the first landings on Mars. Scientists believed that the…
Skin was the first organ to evolve
In the evolution of organs, skin came first. The discovery that even sponges have a proto-skin shows that the separation of insides from outsides in multicellular animals was key to their evolution. It has been known since the 1960s that sponges have a distinct outer layer of cells, or epithelium. But because sponges lack the…
Forests might be detectable on extrasolar planets
Thanks to a new remote sensing technique, astronomers may soon be able to detect the presence of multicellular life (like trees) on planets outside of the Solar System. Excitingly, we’ve been able to detect the composition of atmospheres on a handful of planets orbiting other stars. But if next-generation space observatories go online within the…
