Posts Tagged ‘Life’
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated…”*
Capt. Kirk facing a Horta, a silicon-based life-form (in “Devil in the Dark” from “Star Trek: The Original Series”
Silicon-based (and other alternate) forms of life are a staple of speculative fiction. But are they as far-fetched as they might seem? In Smithsonian‘s Daily Planet blog, astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch suggests not…
It would be extremely “earth-centric” to presume that the biochemistry on our planet is the only way life can operate. But just how different can it be? One extreme example are the “Horta,” the silicon-based life portrayed in Star Trek. Could we expect organisms like that on a terrestrial, meaning Earth-type, planet? Most likely not, because the biochemistry of life is intrinsically related to its environment. On Earth, silicon and oxygen are the main building blocks of Earth’s crust and mantle. Most rocks, particularly volcanic and igneous rocks, are built from silicate minerals, which are based on a silicon and oxygen framework. Any free silicon would be bound in these rocks, which are inert at moderate temperatures. Only at very high temperatures does the framework become more plastic and reactive, which led Gerald Feinberg and Robert Shapiro to suggest the possible existence of lavobes and magmobes that could live in molten silicate rocks…
Adam and 3-CPO, from “Darths and Droids”
One can read the full story at “Is Silicon-Based Life Possible?”
And one can muse on a resonant issue: if we earth-bound humans tend to be pretty precious about our definition of life, we are even more sensitive– indeed, often down-right chauvinistic– in our understandings of consciousness, sentience and who/what can or can’t enjoy them.
* Confucius
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As we study up for the Turing Test, we might send animated birthday greetings to Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch; he was born on this date in 1867. The father of experimental embryology and the first person to clone an animal, Driesch was also the creator of the philosophy of entelechy— and thus the last the last great spokesman for vitalism. Following in the footsteps of Epicurus, Galen, and Pasteur, Driesch argued that life cannot be explained as physical or chemical phenomena.
Survivors…
Conan O’Brien mourns the death of Newsweek in print: “It’s sad, it’s a little mind-boggling. And what’s even stranger and sadder is when you see some of the magazines that actually outlasted Newsweek.
“Newsweek’s gone but these magazines still exist! These are all completely real:” Pond Hoppin, Chess Life, Pole Spin, Airports of the World, Where to Retire, Witches & Pagans, Weed World, Amateur Radio, Racing Pigeon Pictorial, and Just Labs.
– JimRomenesko.com (via TeamCoCo)
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As we console ourselves that there does, after all, seem to be a future for journalism, we might recall that it was on this date in 1936 that Life became the third title (after Time and Fortune) in Henry Luce’s publication stable. The first (essentially) all-photographic American news magazine, it dominated the market for more than 40 years, selling more than 13.5 million copies a week at one point; it was so popular that President Harry S. Truman, Sir Winston Churchill and General Douglas MacArthur all serialized their memoirs in its pages. Life succeeded as a weekly through 1972, at which point it receded to a series of occasional special editions. From 1978 to 2000, it was published as a monthly; then in 2004, revived again (through 2007), as a newspaper insert. In 2008, Time Inc. allowed Google to host the magazine’s image bank (many, previously unpublished). And finally, in 2009, Life.com was launched; it closed in January of this year.
Here is that first issue’s cover; readers may also enjoy Flavorpill’s selection of “The Ten Greatest Life Magazine Covers of All Time.”
The Fort Peck Dam in Montana, photographed by Margaret Bourke-White
That’s life…
Virus (source: Flickr/Razza Mathadsa)
Writing in The Scientist, Professor Edward N. Trifonov tackles the most fundamental of questions:
The definition of life is as enormous a problem as the phenomenon of life itself. One could easily collect from the literature more than 100 different definitions, none satisfactory enough to be broadly accepted. What should the definition contain, to be suitable for all varieties of observable life? Humans, animals, plants, microorganisms. Do viruses also belong to life?
There are two tendencies in the attempts to define life. One is to formulate an all-inclusive definition, accommodating life’s attributes and manifestations from all levels of complexity. Another tendency is to reduce the attributes to only those which are common to all forms of life. But we do not know what would be the “simplissimus” from which everything, probably, started…
Spoiler alert! In “What is Life?” he presses down and further down the hierarchy of scale and process to suggest that “The border between life and nonlife may, actually, be placed anywhere within the realm of the abiotic processes.” (For those distant from their biology classes: “abiotic.”) Trifonov’s conclusion is fascinating– at once, inspiring and humbling:
… life never stopped emerging, starting some 4 billion years ago with replicating RNA, and continuing to this day within the genomes of every living organism.
As we revisit Walt Whitman, we might send germinating birthday greetings to botanist Charles Joseph Chamberlain; he was born on this date in 1863. Chamberlain was a specialist in the cycad genera (palmlike, cone-bearing plants). His work laid the foundation for understanding the life histories, distribution, ecology, and diversity of cycads (and other primitive seed plants), postulated a course of evolutionary development for the spermatophyte (seed plant) ovule and embryo, and led to speculation about a cycad origin for angiosperms (flowering plants).
Is it real or is it…?
source: Life
On a continuing theme of (Roughly) Daily (c.f., e.g., here and here): the “grand old man” of pictorial journalism, Life, offers a series of arresting photos and asks “Real or Fake?”
As we squint, we might recall that it was on this date in 1955 that master of illusion, Walt Disney, previewed Disneyland to the press in anticipation of opening it to the public the following day.
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