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Published online 31 May 2005 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news050531-1
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Fertilizer from the stars
Could a gamma-ray burst have provided nutrients for early plants?
The explosion of a star in our cosmic neighbourhood may not sound like good news for life on Earth. But a team of US researchers says that just such a catastrophe could have showered our planet with fertilizer that helped plants to colonize the land about 440 million years ago1.
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