Can scientists detect life without knowing what it looks like? Research using machine learning offers a new way

LifeTracer is not a universal life detector. Rather, it provides a foundation for interpreting complex organic mixtures. The Bennu findings remind us that life-friendly chemistry may be widespread ...

Towards sustainable organic synthesis—mechanochemistry replaces lithium with sodium in organic reactions

Highly reactive organometallic reagents, like organolithiums (molecules with a carbon–lithium bond) are essential reagents in ...
earth

Building blocks of life found locked in ice outside of the Milky Way for the first time

Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to spot five complex, carbon based molecules frozen in ice around a forming star outside our galaxy. The young star, called ST6, sits about 160,000 ...
Eos

Space Radiation Can Produce Some Organic Molecules Detected on Icy Moons

Two new studies investigate the possible origins of organic molecules detected in plumes erupting from the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, pictured here in an artist’s impression. Enceladus’s ...
Smithsonian Magazine

Architects of a New Kind of Molecular Structure Win Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Members of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry hold a model of a metal-organic framework during the 2025 prize announcement in Stockholm on October 8. Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP via Getty Images Three ...
C&EN

Chemists behind the creation of metal-organic frameworks awarded Nobel

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Richard Robson, Susumu Kitagawa, and Omar M. Yaghi for their groundbreaking work in the design and synthesis of metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs.
The New York Times

Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded to Architects of Metal-Organic Frameworks

The prize was awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi for the development of an architecture that some chemists compare with a molecular sponge. By Alexa Robles-Gil and Ali Watkins ...
Scientific American

Enceladus’s Alien Ocean, Ancient Fungi and the Flavor of Influenza

Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Let’s kick off the week with a quick roundup of some science news you may have missed. First, ...
Space.com

Saturn's moon Enceladus is shooting out organic molecules that could help create life

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Complex organic molecules that form part of the chain of chemical reactions that can result in ...
PBS

A study has found new organic molecules on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Scientists say that increases the chance it’s habitable

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Scientists have uncovered new types of organics in icy geysers spouting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, bolstering the likelihood that the ocean world may harbor conditions ...
Astronomy

Organic molecules in Saturn’s rings originated from liquid water, scientists confirm

A new analysis of archival Cassini spacecraft data has definitively confirmed that organic molecules detected in the icy plumes emanating from Saturn’s moon Enceladus originate directly from its ...
Scientific American

Saturn’s Moon Enceladus Has Complex, Life-Friendly Chemistry

Enceladus, a 500-kilometer-wide moon of Saturn, has been a top target in the hunt for extraterrestrial life for nearly two decades. In 2005, shortly after arriving in orbit around the ringed planet, ...