Hey, Tony baby, have I got a movie script for you.
Biology
Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash
Chroococcidiopsis thermalis, an extremophile bacteria • Image by T. Darienko (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Life will go on
Imagine the following experiment. Remove all visible life from planet Earth.
Martian meteorite ALH84001 • NASA/JSC (Public Domain)
Just show us the life
It has been nearly a year since the headlines screamed “Life on Mars!”
Cedar-apple rust • Amy Manjon (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Borne on a sea of vital dust
“Vital dust.” That’s what Nobel Prize-winning biologist Christian de Duve titles his book on the origin and evolution of life.
Abandoned Bahamian house • Photo by Trish Hartmann (CC BY 2.0)
Study this world, love this world
Recently, on the island of Great Exuma in the Bahamas, I came upon a small abandoned house in the woods not far from where I was staying. A tangle of sea grape made the place almost inaccessible — like Sleeping Beauty’s castle.
Photo by Ravi Roshan on Unsplash
Define life? That’s easy to do…or is it?
What is life? No question in science is more fundamental. No question is more difficult to answer.
Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash
There’s no order like birth order
Frank Sulloway thinks he has discovered the driving engine of history: birth order.
The lifeless surface of Mars • NASA/JPL/MSSS, processing by Olivier de Goursac (CC BY-SA 3.0)
All you need is (eons) of time
The first media reports of evidence for life on Mars were pure NASA gush. Scientists discover evidence of life on Mars. Give us a few billion bucks and we’ll go look for it.
A mosquito of the genus Anopheles • Jim Gathany/CDC (Public Domain)
The bite that binds us
Here’s something to think about while you’re slapping mosquitoes this summer. We have more in common with these creatures than you might think.
Propionibacterium • Image by CDC/Bobby Strong (Public Domain)
Our bodies, our microbes
From a microbe’s point of view, there is nothing more attractive than a newborn human infant. A pristine planet waiting to be colonized.