Oxygen

Weight is a premium on space launches, so the less we have to take with us, the better. Now engineers have developed a new electrolysis device that may be able to convert very salty Martian water into breathable oxygen and hydrogen for fuel.

When NASA’s Perseverance rover touches down in Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021, it will carry with it an experiment that will attempt to transform carbon dioxide into oxygen – a gas that can be used to create rocket fuel.

Many readers are likely already familiar with the oximeters that measure blood oxygen levels via the patient's finger. Well, scientists have now developed a device that works on the same principle, but it can be non-invasively used on unborn fetuses.

Turns out the Red Planet is a little more green than we thought. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) has detected a tinge of green in the atmosphere, making it the first time this aurora-like glow has been spotted around a planet other than Earth.

A study from Stanford University has delivered the most thorough investigation into a human body’s molecular response to exercise ever conducted. The research points to a future blood test that could objectively measure a person’s general fitness.

Aquatic hypoxia can be a serious problem, producing oxygen-depleted "dead zones" in lakes or seas. New research suggests that a process known as downwelling may help keep those zones from forming – although it wouldn't be a cheap solution.

There’s only so much oxygen we can take with us to the Moon, so figuring out how to produce it there is crucial. Now, ESA researchers have created a prototype device that can make oxygen out of the most common thing on the Moon – dirt.

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Medicine has been awarded to William Kaelin, Peter Ratcliffe and Gregg Semenza for uncovering how cells adapt to low oxygen.

Evolution is usually gradual, but half a billion years ago it took off at a gallop in an event that’s now known as the Cambrian Explosion. One of the leading theories is this came from a huge spike in oxygen levels, and now a team may have found where all that oxygen come from – plate tectonics.

Most oxygen in the universe isn’t in the form that we need to breathe: molecular oxygen, or O2. Now, researchers at Caltech claim to have created a reactor that can turn carbon dioxide into molecular oxygen, which could help us fight climate change here on Earth or generate oxygen for life in space.

Within a relatively short period of time, life burst forth into an incredible diversity of forms, in an event that has since come to be known as the Cambrian explosion. Now, an international team of scientists has found clues to what may have caused that – spikes in oxygen levels.

Arsenic is toxic to almost all life forms, but now researchers have discovered that some microbes in the Pacific Ocean actively breathe it. The discovery has implications for how life may adapt to a changing climate, as well as where we might find it on other planets.