Earth

A rare "Rydberg" molecule discovered by scientists from the University of Stuttgart and University of Oklahoma upheld scientific theory predicting the molecule existed. The team used a gas of rubidium atoms cooled to a temperature of 3 millionths of a degree above absolute zero to produce the molecule. The longest-lived molecule produced by the team survived only for 18 microseconds.

COLLEGE PARK, Md - Geologists may have uncovered the answer to an age-old question – an ice-age-old question, that is. It appears that Earth's earliest ice ages may have been due to the rise of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, which consumed atmospheric greenhouse gases and chilled the earth.

Scientists studying the world's most unusual volcano have discovered the reason behind its unique carbon-based lavas. The new geochemical analyses reveals that an extremely small degree of partial melting of typical minerals in the earth's upper mantle is the source of the rare carbon-derived lava erupting from Tanzania's Oldoinyo Lengai volcano.