Free Republic

Shortly after the devastating eruption, some gophers went on a very confusing day trip. A member of the gopher recovery team getting to work. Image credit: Mike Allen/UCR When Mount St Helens erupted in 1980, the resulting lava, ash, and debris turned the landscape barren for miles around. It was clear the land would take a long time to recover from the eruption. But one team of scientists had an idea about how they could help speed up the process; sending a few gophers there on a day trip. Plant life struggled to return to the area around Mount St...

Scientists have discovered several elusive species of microorganisms. Scientists have discovered new microscopic species. Researchers have found a number of very rare species of microorganisms, some of which have never been observed before and others which have eluded the attention of researchers for more than a century. Professor Genoveva Esteban of Bournemouth University and James Weiss, an independent researcher working in his own lab in Warsaw, Poland, with his two cats, made the discovery of these elusive species and published their findings in the scientific journal Protist. Their approach to research and the discovery of these new and rare...

Living bacteria were found on the surface of the International Space Station (ISS), and they might have extraterrestrial origins, Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov said. The microorganisms will be studied further on Earth. Shkaplerov, an ISS expedition flight engineer who will take his third trip to the ISS in December as part of the Expedition 54 crew, said that scientists found living bacteria while they were taking samples from the surface of the station. Speaking to TASS, he said that the microorganisms might have come from outer space. ... However, traces of bacteria originating on Earth – from Madagascar – and...