Imagine the following experiment. Remove all visible life from planet Earth.
Chroococcidiopsis thermalis, an extremophile bacteria • Image by T. Darienko (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Baltimore oriole • Illustration by Emma Bell Miles (Public Domain)
Folds in the fabric of time
In her autobiography, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eudora Welty writes: “The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order, a timetable not necessarily — perhaps not possibly — chronological.”
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!”
The Hubble Deep Field photograph • R. Williams (STScI), the Hubble Deep Field Team and NASA/ESA
Living happily in the giga-universe
What’s a billion?
Photo by Pedro Lima on Unsplash
Will God cooperate in prayer study?
Can prayer heal? That question has been getting increased attention within the medical community, perhaps because of the general rise of interest in alternative therapies.
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.
Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997 • E. Kolmhofer, H. Raab; Johannes-Kepler-Observatory, Linz, Austria (CC BY-SA 3.0)
If Hale-Bopp had come a bit earlier
In June 1995, Sky & Telescope magazine published an article by Mark Gingrich that posed the question: When are we likely to get the next great comet?
Photo by Richard Horvath on Unsplash
Antiwords for antimatter
“Perhaps we are here only for saying: House, Bridge, Fountain, Gate…,” says the poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
Photos by Antoine Schibler and Markus Spiske on Unsplash
The Sox take on some real stiffs
Dan Duquette, long-time Red Sox general manager, rises to IBM’s challenge to match his team against the latest in personal robots.
A research mouse • Photo by Rama (CC BY-SA 2.0)
It’s love vs. knowledge
The other day on a nature walk with students, I used my penknife to open a gall — one of those woody growths on plants that are caused by insects. At the center of the gall was a tiny larva.