A new technique allows researchers to separate external and internal DNA to identify microbes colonizing the hostile environment of the Atacama Desert. The Atacama Desert, which runs along the Pacific ...

Microbes have been discovered alive inside 2-billion-year-old rock, offering a rare window into Earth’s deep past. Found in the Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC) of South Africa, these microscopic ...

Nitrogen is essential for all living organisms, but in many ecosystems it is in short supply. Plants and soil microbes both ...

Microbes have been able to find a home in some truly incredible places, including deep in the icy lakes of Antarctica and inside of the geothermal hot springs of Yellowstone. Now scientists have ...

The Atacama Desert is one of the most extreme habitats on Earth. Atacama surface soil samples include a mix of DNA from inside and outside living cells. A new technique allows researchers to separate ...

The Atacama Desert, which runs along the Pacific Coast in Chile, is the driest place on the planet and, largely because of that aridity, hostile to most living things. Not everything, though—studies ...