life

So, I have never had a good time with philosophy. The first real philosophical work that I tried to read was Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra when I was 16, and I gave up reading it very soon after I gave up trying to understand it. I stayed away from philosophy for a few years, preferring...

Complex, Multicellular Life from Over Two Billion Years Ago Discovered http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100630171711.htm Wow.

I'm so excited! Or am I getting ahead of myself? What do you experts in biology here think are the chances of finding life? This discovery has surely improved the odds, but by how much?

This topic might not be comfortable for all of you. But, I do find this sort of thing fascinating, myself. I am looking for any and all examples that demonstrate a blurry line between the two states of "Life": "Alive" and "Dead" And/Or: Examples that blur the line between Living and...

Let's say the next Mars rover confirms biological life is on the red planet. That is, DNA based life forms, similar to ourselves. What is the likelihood that 2 adjacent planets evolved DNA based life forms? It is one thing to speculate over the entire universe, but adjacent planets? The odds...

I can't recall where I read/heard this, but recently there was something which speculated about the possibility of non-biological life evolving via the Internet. Needless to say, I'm certain this would involve something having to do with emergent properties and whatnot, but it's a topic I was...

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/replicatingrna.html Life - a series of complicated, competing chemical reactions. Ain't it grand? Athon

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t.html An interesting article on efforts to recreate the first proto-cells. Obviously this is only one possible path to the origins of life and is not claimed to be THE way it happened but very interesting none the less. Nice to see...

Assuming people will find a way to extend human life indefinitely (whether or not this is a good assumption is not in question here), how would that change people's views? Will people care more about safety? If it is not a given that we will die, would you be much more careful? Will people...

I remember reading in the Radio Times earlier this year, Jeremy Paxman speaking to Sir ( the icon, himself ) David Attenborough. When he was asked if there was a purpose in life, he made it abundantly clear that there was none. Now he didn't say why. So I'm curious about your views on a...

The Consumer Paradox: Scientists Find that Low Self-Esteem and Materialism Goes Hand in Hand So is increasing the economy always a good thing? I have long joked that it everyone became frugal to gain financial security our economy would collapse. I have heard it argued many times that the...

This question's been bothering me recently. Suppose there is a such thing as Heaven. Eternal paradise. Assume for the sake of argument that it exists, and that everyone is destined for Heaven upon death unless they have committed a "mortal sin". So, wouldn't killing somebody be doing them...

The origin of life is a crucial part (if not the most important question) of the Theist/Atheist debate. Yet I contend that most atheists are not aware that all life (the blue whales, the insects, the elephants, the octopuses, the trees in the redwood forests, the butterflies, the cactus, the...

This is more abstract, because I want more than the typical Moral Dilemma. Which would you sacrifice for the other? Would you chose to live ethically and die, or live unethically and live? Now we could go into specifics, like how bad a breach in ethics are we talking about? Does it make a...

I found this article interesting. Oops, maybe not a good beginning. :) Anyway, I was unaware of this line of research. Do any of you in the biz have more information to add.

I thought this was interesting. Does anyone know anymore about this? Are there any botanists who might be able to shed more light, so to speak, regarding this? /I am sorry if this has already been posted.

Science breakthrough. The transplant of an entire genome. It sounds like they have a production technique... it only worked 1 out of 150,000 tries. That doesn't sound like one scientist at a microscope changing 1 bacterium at a time. It promises a new tomorrow... manufactured life...