Plants need nitrogen to grow. Many legumes meet this need through a symbiotic relationship: They harbor bacteria that fix ...

The shrinking sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is, overall, a disaster. But paradoxically, the melting of the ice can also fuel the engine of the Arctic food chains: algae. Algae are the main food source ...

Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) underpins the fertility and resilience of tropical forests by converting atmospheric N₂ into plant-available forms. In these ecosystems, both symbiotic associations ...

Nitrogen fixation is surprisingly high in the ocean's coastal waters and may play a larger role than expected in carbon dioxide uptake, a new study shows. The findings -- based on thousands of samples ...

I was taken back a significant period of years by the article in C&EN on nitrogen fixation as a potential answer to the massive overuse of fertilizers (July 31, 2023, page 24). The underlying reasons ...

Freshwater and coastal waters may cover just a small portion of the planet, but they turn out to be powerful contributors to nitrogen fixation, a natural process essential to life on Earth. A new ...

A new research initiative led by associate professor of bacteriology Betül Kaçar is positioned to transform agriculture and address some of the world’s most pressing ecological and economic challenges ...

Most organisms require nitrogen to produce biological molecules, such as nucleotides and amino acids, but until recently, only prokaryotes were known to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. “It’s a very ...

Nitrogen is vital for all known life. Yet most nitrogen on Earth is in the atmosphere as di-nitrogen gas, which many organisms can’t use. Fortunately, there are microbes that can tap into this ...

Nitrogen fixation in soil is a microbial-mediated process that converts atmospheric dinitrogen into forms accessible to plants, profoundly influencing terrestrial productivity, nutrient cycling and ...

Scientists have developed a uranium-based complex that allows nitrogen fixation reactions to take place in ambient conditions. The work lays the foundation to develop new processes for synthesizing ...

Scientists have long relied on chemical traces locked inside ancient rocks to piece together the story of early life. Fossils ...