Nanodreadlocks and Fossil Poop_4

Curvy crystals. Usually, curved and twisted crystals like these are created by living organisms, using proteins to guide their formation. But Spanish and Australian researchers have found a way to create such patterns from barium or strontium carbonate using silica and changes in pH to guide the formation of the curved shapes. That shows that the presence of complex, curved shapes on Mars or elsewhere would not automatically be proof of life.

Photo: Image courtesy of Laboratorio de Estudios Cristalográficos

The burning seep. The primary source of methane gas is life, from microbes to cow flatulence. But it also comes out of the Earth along with other hydrocarbons like ethane and propane. A pair of Italian scientists who examined 238 sites where the gases leak out of the Earth, including the Yanardag everlasting fire in Azerbaijan, say that seepage accounts for at least 17 percent of ethane emissions and 10 percent of propane emissions and needs to be included in climate models.

Photo: Courtesy of L. Innocenzi

Fossil feces. The giant moa is long gone, but the poop is still there. So scientists analyzed 1,500 pieces of fossilized feces in caves across southern New Zealand to better understand what the ecosystem looked like before the arrival of humans. The giant moa was as tall as nine feet and could weigh more than 500 pounds. Some of the feces were a yard long. Based on the seeds in the feces, it appears that the moa grazed on tiny herbs, the scientists said.

A space rock like Earth. The meteorite GRA 06128, found in Antarctica two years ago, came from a meteorite with a crust much like Earth's continental makeup. The rock is more than 4.52 billion years old and formed at the same time as the planets. On Earth, plate tectonics create that type of mineral composition. The composition of the meteorite came from entirely different processes, scientists said.