When scientists search for extraterrestrial life, they invariably focus on the sixth element on the periodic table: Carbon. "I don't think even most humans have much self-awareness, let alone bacteria ...

Where would carbon-based life be without carbon? There are 118 known chemical elements, but carbon is the fourth most abundant and perhaps the most important to human life. Everywhere you look, ...

Ruth Morgan receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Redemption is the goal of all these titles. They seek to recover the element’s wonder beyond its contemporary conflation with ...

One element is the backbone of all forms of life we’ve ever discovered on Earth: carbon. One element is the backbone of all forms of life we’ve ever discovered on Earth: carbon. Number six on the ...

Roston, a former Time writer on technology and energy, positively revels in the chance to dig deep into the ubiquitous, life-enabling carbon. He begins his first book with the science of this element: ...

“Carbon is a window into the entirety of life, with all its beauty, secrets, and complexity,” according to this eloquent if meandering study. Environmentalist Hawken (Regeneration) explains that the ...

Credit: Shutterstock with added elements. Over 99% of a human cell is made up of just five elements: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus. That same elemental mix exists, with minor ...

"Carbon is everywhere: in the paper of this book and the blood of our bodies. It's with us from beginning to end, present in our baby clothes and coffin alike. We live on a carbon planet, and we are ...

Saturn’s moon Enceladus is producing phosphorus, meaning that this icy moon holds all the essential building blocks for life as we know it. Every life form on Earth contains six key elements: carbon, ...