Nitrogen is a critical limiting element for plant growth and production. It is a major component of chlorophyll, the most important pigment needed for photosynthesis, as well as amino acids, the key ...

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 ...

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

It has puzzled scientists for years whether and how bacteria, that live from dissolved organic matter in marine waters, can carry out N 2 fixation. It was assumed that the high levels of oxygen ...

Food productivity is dependent on the availability of fertilizer, says Utah State University biochemist Lance Seefeldt. "We need nitrogen to survive, but we can't take it in from the air," says ...

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 ...

A new evaluation of biological nitrogen fixation for inland and coastal waters concludes that these habitats are an overlooked but important source of fixation globally. Robinson Fulweiler and ...

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 ...

A typical day for Jieshun Lin began with a long bus ride to the greenhouses. “For 10 hours each day, I would pull up plants and wash their roots, looking carefully at each individual plant. [Up to] 10 ...

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 ...