If the jump-start came from microlightning in water sprays, rather than full-sized lightning strikes over water, Zare and his colleagues say that could solve the problem and give life to a new ...

The building blocks of life on Earth may have been fueled by tiny sparks hopping between water droplets. Four billion years ago, Earth was a lifeless world, but a dynamic one. Crashing waves ...

Water spray, however, would have been more common than lightning. A more likely scenario is that mist-generated microlightning constantly zapped amino acids into existence from pools and puddles ...

Instead, he discovered that, in the lab at least, lightning-like discharges are brighter over salt water than over fresh water or soil. “We were surprised,” says atmospheric scientist Colin ...

Lightning flashes over the Mediterranean Sea (AFP via Getty ... Their study shows that larger water droplets often carry positive charges and smaller ones negative. When such oppositely charged ...

Based on this result, the study claims that lightning strikes are not necessary, and tiny sparks from crashing waves or waterfalls may have jump-started life on the planet. “On early Earth, there were ...

An unplanned experiment takes scientists closer to solving a long-standing mystery: To what extent, if any, have human-created emissions influenced thunderstorms?