Word: biogeochemist
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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That is crucial, observes David Des Marais, a NASA biogeochemist. Liquid water is an ideal medium in which carbon-based organic chemicals can dissolve and react with one another in myriad ways. Why carbon, necessarily? Because, says Des Marais, "it is such a versatile chemical. It makes so many different and complex compounds. And it's the fourth most abundant element in the universe." Carbon compounds literally litter the cosmos, drifting through interstellar space in giant molecular clouds and making up a significant percentage, by mass, of comets and asteroids. Some scientists are convinced that the basic building blocks...
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