A hidden mineral trap in ancient ocean sediments may have starved early marine life of phosphorus, the nutrient most critical ...

Scientists have long sought to explain a key mismatch in Earth's early history: oxygen-producing photosynthesis evolved ...

Phosphorus is a key element for all life on Earth. For decades, researchers thought that, in nature, only enzymes could transform organic phosphorus—phosphates within biomolecules—into its ...

Plants and microbes are known to secrete enzymes to transform organic phosphorus into bioavailable inorganic phosphorus. Now, researchers found that iron oxide in soil performs the same transformation ...

Northwestern University researchers are actively overturning the conventional view of iron oxides as mere phosphorus "sinks." A critical nutrient for life, most phosphorus in the soil is organic—from ...

Researchers led by Dr. Jing Peng from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences investigated the effects of phosphorus limitation on carbon sequestration in China. The ...

A study finds that a single invasive species may largely control phosphorus cycling in four of the Great Lakes. The ecology of the Great Lakes has been altered by the invasion of quagga and zebra ...

Iron oxide in soil performs the same transformation as plants and microbes that are known to secrete enzymes to transform organic phosphorus into bioavailable inorganic phosphorus. Northwestern ...