Committee for the Defence of the Iranian People’s Rights general secretary GAWAIN LITTLE discusses the impact of the US-Israeli war on the Iranian people and economy
Latest editorial
Deep-sea discovery challenges theories of oxygen as an alien life marker
ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT explore how metal nodules producing oxygen on the ocean floor complicate the search for extraterrestrial life and our understanding of Earth's early atmosphere
MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS: Field of polymetallic nodules of type C in the north equatorial Pacific, photo taken from the submarine Nautile - NODINAUT campaign. The formations can be found as deep as 20,000 feet below the ocean's surface
[Philweb/CC]
Capitalism has extracted itself from crisis before, argues PRABHAT PATNAIK – but through methods no longer available. So it is turning to authoritarianism, militarism and neocolonialism
The five young men killed in the A66 crash were responsible for a devastating tragedy — but the crash should force us to ask difficult questions about wider society, argues RENATA MEDEIROS MIRRA
Britain funds the policing of black culture 16 times better than the culture itself. The Diamond Jubilee is the moment to end that, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
Despite Andy Burnham’s declaration defending the continued partition of the island, all major international and internal trends are converging to make Irish reunification inevitable
Humans are part of the ‘animal kingdom’ – and of nature in general – but also distinct from it and labour (work) is part of what makes us unique, declared Engels. His insights 150 years ago into how our species came to be and how we differ from the rest of nature, are as important today as they were then, says the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
SOME astrophysicists try to understand the composition of planets that go round other stars — so-called “exoplanets.” They do so by looking at how light from the star is absorbed as the planet orbits around it, which allows them to find out the compounds that make up the planet’s atmosphere.
The technique allows scientists to understand something about these distant planets, though they are separated by many light years.
Some scientists believe that by identifying specific molecules in the atmospheres of these planets, we will be able to observe the signature of life. These signatures would be “biomarkers” — molecules that can’t be produced by simple chemistry, but can only be made by living organisms.
The difficulty in assessing these molecules and the remoteness of the planets make others sceptical that any biomarker would, by itself, ever be enough to categorically say that life exists.
Similar stories
JAMES WALSH is moved by a provocative and original take on the relationship between ecology and architecture, and a plea to work with, not against, the materials and minerals of our world
![Meat [Pic: Cindie Hansen / Creative Commons]](https://msd11.gn.apc.org/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2026-07/cindie-hansen-8IQlsHB2OS8-unsplash.jpg.webp?itok=AgeMqKnO)
Innovation in biotechnology is changing how we conceive of meat, say ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT of SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
Nature as well as society works dialectically, asserts the Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School
Neutrinos are so abundant that 400 trillion pass through your body every second. ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT explain how scientists are seeking to know more about them