A Special Place for Blog Lovers with a Touch of Science!

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We presume generally presume that all questions have their answers. If you can't find an answer, well, you should try harder and really dive into the topic you are searching in. At least, that is the popular belief spread among the academies and universities around the world. Otherwise, why should we even try to pose questions? Nevertheless, there are tons of questions that no one can answer and we face them every day. However, there is another way to look at this paradoxical situation. Maybe it is not necessary that each question has only one right answer.

Credit: Red barrel sponges, pictured here, harbor dense, diverse microbial communities; Sabrina Pankey

Sponges in coral reefs, less flashy than their coral neighbors but important to the overall health of reefs, are among the earliest animals on the planet.

New research by University of New Hampshire scientists and their colleagues, peers into coral reef ecosystems with a novel approach to understanding the complex evolution of sponges and the microbes that live in symbiosis with them.

With this "genomic time machine," researchers can predict aspects of reef and ocean ecosystems over hundreds of millions of years of dramatic evolutionary change. The U.S. National Science Foundation-supported results are published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Credit: NASA

Ozone may be weakening one of Earth's most important cooling mechanisms, making it a more significant greenhouse gas than previously thought, researchers have found.

A new study has revealed that changes in ozone levels in the upper and lower atmosphere were responsible for almost a third of the warming seen in ocean waters bordering Antarctica in the second half of the 20th century.

The deep and rapid warming in the Southern Ocean affects its role as one of the main regions for soaking up excess heat as the planet warms.

Most of this warming was the result of ozone increases in the lower atmosphere. Ozone -- one of the main components of smog -- is already a hazardous pollutant, but the research shows it may also play a significant role in driving climate change in the coming years.

Credit: Phytoplankton under the microscope; Gettyimages

Cup sea water in your hands and you will be holding a bustling world of single-cell organisms – thousands of them.

Much like creatures of an undersea metropolis, microscopic photosynthetic microbes – phytoplankton – quietly float through the ocean, enhancing water quality. As the foundation for the ocean ecosystem, phytoplankton work tirelessly to fuel marine food webs and consume large amounts of carbon dioxide on scales equivalent to forests. But this is not all they can do! These tiny plants may turn organic contaminants into less toxic chemicals.

Sounds simple, but it's not. The processes involved remain elusive.

Credit: Gettyimages

1. I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

- Isaac Newton

2. Life cannot have had a random beginning ... The trouble is that there are about 2000 enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 10^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.

- Fred Hoyle