Oxygen

How Earth Got Its Oxygen

If you’re currently living on our pale blue dot, you should thank it for becoming inhabitable for us human folk. Specifically, you should look down and thank its mantle because scientists are saying that Earth’s cooler mantle allowed it to develop oxygen. You know, that thing we breathe to live. Researchers from Princeton University published…

Tech News Casey Chan May 24

Dinosaurs were surrounded by constant fires

Dinosaurs once ruled the Earth — but now it appears they ruled in Hell. Ancient charcoal deposits suggest wildfires ran rampant throughout the Cretaceous period, meaning dinosaurs had to spend 80 million years looking out for the next inferno. So just why was the Cretaceous so fiery? According to researchers from London’s Royal Holloway University…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Apr 10

Earth’s atmosphere has repeatedly been choked in a thick methane haze

2.5 billion years ago, the Sun was basically invisible from the Earth’s surface. Microbes in the oceans pumped methane into the atmosphere, creating a giant cloud of smog that covered the entire planet. Yes, the whole world turned into LA. If you were to visit Earth at most points in its history, it wouldn’t look…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Mar 19

Oxygen discovered around Saturn’s icy moon

The moons of Saturn and Jupiter are just getting more and more intriguing. While many of those far-flung satellites might contain liquid oceans, a new report indicates that Dione, one of Saturn’s icy moons, is surrounded by a thin layer of oxygen. According to a new report published in Geophysical Research Letters, Cassini detected a…

io9 Lauren Davis Mar 3

What do the Milky Way’s billions of Earth-like planets really look like?

The latest estimates suggest there are at least 160 billion exoplanets in the Milky Way alone, which means there could easily be several billion potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy. But are all these Earth-like planets really like our home? That’s the question an international team of astronomers are attempting to answer. While we’ve still…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Feb 23

Meet the molecule responsible for giving Earth all of its oxygen

About 2.5 billion years ago, our planet had virtually no oxygen, and lifeforms were primitive. Then, oxygen levels suddenly spiked, the entire landscape of the planet changed, and we were on our way to complex life. Now, at last, we know why. Earth probably wouldn’t have gotten much past simple multi-cellular organisms without the Great…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Jan 10

Astronomers discover the first unchanged relics of the Big Bang

Located some 11 billion light-years from Earth are two clouds of gas. Just two billion years younger than the Big Bang itself, they appear to be the first known clouds that are completely unaltered since the birth of the universe. The elements that make up a cloud of gas or other cosmic structure can help…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Nov 22

New galactic survey reveals relatively few stars have the right stuff to create life

To get life, you first need organic molecules, and the easiest way to get those is from the compound methanol. Now it seems there are very specific conditions needed to create methanol and, ultimately, life… and most stars don’t have them. The organic molecules that are the basis for life here on Earth — and,…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Nov 3

Yeast kept life on Earth alive before the rise of oxygen

Around 2.4 billion years ago, the ancestors of bacteria took over the oceans and began photosynthesizing, creating massive amounts of oxygen where before there had been barely any. This was the Great Oxygenation Event, which made all subsequent life on Earth possible. All life except . . . yeast. Yeast do depend on oxygen, so…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Aug 9

Oxygen molecules discovered in space for the very first time

We’ve discovered evidence of just about every gas imaginable out in space, but one we’d never seen was molecular oxygen, the stuff we breathe everyday. Now, thanks to powerful infrared telescopes, we’ve found the very first traces of space oxygen. While individual oxygen atoms are found throughout space, that’s not what we breathe. Instead, we…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Aug 2

Dirty Little Secret: Orange Juice Is Artificially Flavored to Taste Like Oranges

How do you make orange juice? Simple! Squeeze oranges and drink. How do big box companies make orange juice? Complicated! Squeeze oranges, remove oxygen, re-flavor the now flavorless orange juice with artificially orange “flavor packs” and…drink? Uhh… I never thought about it but it makes incredible sense now. Orange juice from Tropicana, Simply Orange, Minute…

Tech News Casey Chan Jul 29

New discovery might explain the origins of water and/or bleach the galaxy’s hair blonde

Near the star Rho Ophiuchi, there are thick cosmic dust clouds from which new suns are born. While the vast majority of particles in the clouds are hydrogen, a newly discovered molecule could explain where water came from. Specifically, astronomers at the European Southern Observatory have found evidence for hydrogen peroxide in those cosmic clouds.…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Jul 10

A bit of hydrogen could save you from oxygen poisoning

Hyperoxia, also known as oxygen toxicity or poisoning, can happen when your body is exposed to pure O2 for too long. That’s right – one of the gasses you need to survive can also poison you. This is an issue for people who have lung disease and other ailments that prevent them from breathing properly…

io9 Tim Barribeau May 19

Ancient animals relied on “oxygen oases” to breathe Earth’s early atmosphere

As recently as 600 million years ago, oxygen levels were extremely low on Earth, only about a tenth of what they are today. So how did ancient animals move around and avoid mass asphyxiation? We’re not talking about very big animals, of course – just tiny organisms that made small burrows into rocks during the…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins May 16

Workers Pumping Fukushima Full of Nitrogen to Prevent Explosion

The volatile mix of seawater and melting fuel rods is producing hydrogen and oxygen gas—the stuff that blew the lids off Fukushima twice last month. To avert another disastrous hydrogen explosion, workers are blowing inert nitorgen gas inside. https://gizmodo.com/second-explosion-at-the-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-plant-5781611 The effort is going on at this very moment, and the consequences are quite dire—documents obtained…

Tech News Sam Biddle Apr 6

600 million-year-old fossils reveal catastrophic oxygen loss on ancient Earth

635 million years ago, almost the entire planet was a frozen ball of ice. And yet mere tens of millions of years later a population explosion happened deep underwater in South China, preceding the better-known Cambrian explosion by a significant time period. In these oxygen-free waters, more than 3,000 fossils of 15 species of seaweeds…

io9 Tim Barribeau Feb 17

18 Items Used to Conquer Everest

The Everest climb is a notoriously nasty expedition. Here’s an inside look at some of the gear used to climb that icy mountain fortress, from the earliest expeditions to today’s tech-filled ventures. For more snowy, wintry adventure, check out snowmobiles through history, 10 strange snow vehicles, awesome climbing walls, 20 railroad snowplows, or extraordinary armor.…

Tech News Christina Bonnington Dec 24

Millions of years ago, Earth’s atmosphere had almost no oxygen

We all know how important carbon and oxygen are in the development of life on Earth. But millions of years ago, there wouldn’t have been enough oxygen for animals to exist. What changed? Between 750 and 580 million years ago, the Earth was almost entirely encased in thick glaciers and ice sheets. When the ice…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Nov 1

Our Sun Might Look Like This…In 6 Billion Years

Is this a Droid wallpaper? A Pokeball? Nope, it’s actually hot water surrounding a giant carbon star. It’s a phenomenon that’s puzzling scientists and it’s happening to a star similar to our Sun. In 6 billion years, our Sun will be nearing the end of its life and expanding outward. Much like this star, it’ll…

Space & Spaceflight Casey Chan Sep 1

The search is on for Earth’s missing two billion years

2.5 billion years ago, some highly-efficient bacteria began what’s known as the oxygen revolution. 600 million years ago, the first multicellular animals appeared. What happened in between? We’re really not sure – but geologists are working on it. Here’s the quick version of Earth’s 4.54 billion year history. When the Earth first formed, the atmosphere…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Aug 23

How Earth Got Its Oxygen

Dinosaurs were surrounded by constant fires

Earth’s atmosphere has repeatedly been choked in a thick methane haze

Oxygen discovered around Saturn’s icy moon

What do the Milky Way’s billions of Earth-like planets really look like?

Meet the molecule responsible for giving Earth all of its oxygen

Astronomers discover the first unchanged relics of the Big Bang

New galactic survey reveals relatively few stars have the right stuff to create life

Yeast kept life on Earth alive before the rise of oxygen

Oxygen molecules discovered in space for the very first time

Dirty Little Secret: Orange Juice Is Artificially Flavored to Taste Like Oranges

New discovery might explain the origins of water and/or bleach the galaxy’s hair blonde

A bit of hydrogen could save you from oxygen poisoning

Ancient animals relied on “oxygen oases” to breathe Earth’s early atmosphere

Workers Pumping Fukushima Full of Nitrogen to Prevent Explosion

600 million-year-old fossils reveal catastrophic oxygen loss on ancient Earth

18 Items Used to Conquer Everest

Millions of years ago, Earth’s atmosphere had almost no oxygen

Our Sun Might Look Like This…In 6 Billion Years

The search is on for Earth’s missing two billion years

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