Some bacteria are able to tap into unusual sources of nutrients in the surface water of the oceans. This enables them to increase their primary production and extract more carbon dioxide from the ...

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 ...

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 ...

Most phosphorus in the environment is in an organic form that plants cannot directly use, and traditional understanding suggested only enzymes could convert it into the bioavailable inorganic form.

Instead, the process chemicals needed to convert the white phosphorus are recyclable. "Economic factors still stand in the way of industrial application of the process, however a rethink is currently ...

Infinite vastness: Gases are constantly exchanged between the ocean and the atmosphere. The study presented here shows how tiny marine organisms contribute significantly to the release of the ...

Northwestern University-led researchers have discovered a new way that nature cycles phosphorus, a finding that uncovers a missing piece of Earth’s puzzling phosphorus cycle. The research will be ...