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Iron integral to the Development of Life on Earth – and the Possibility of Life on Other Planets

Early Earth on the left, had seas infused with life-enhancing iron, whereas Earth today, seen on the right, does not.

Researchers at the University of Oxford uncover the importance of iron for the development of complex life on Earth – which also may hint at the likelihood of complex life on other planets.

Iron is an essential nutrient that almost all life requires to grow and thrive. Iron’s importance goes all the way back to the formation of the planet Earth, where the amount of iron in the Earth’s rocky mantle was ‘set’ by the conditions under which the planet formed and went on to have major ramifications for how life developed...

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