A Living Galaxy?

An interesting article appearing on CNN.com discussing the probability of life existing within the Milky Way beyond Earth.  Of course determining if life actually exists on other Earth-like planets is no easy task considering our current level of technology, but it is still interesting speculation. 

Back in high school I wrote a short argumentative piece with the premise that it is foolish to assume that life wouldn’t exist beyond our planet.  Considering the amazing vastness of the universe, the shear number of stars, and the likelihood of billions and billions of planets, there is no reason to think that our world is an isolated case of something called life developing.  Of course, realistically we have to consider that life elsewhere in the universe, or even in our own galaxy, may be very different from what we imagine.  The fact that we only have Earth life to work with to develop a good definition of life means that there may very possibly be all sorts of “life” out there that we could not have previously imagined.

All that being said, I don’t think aliens have been coming to visit us or probably ever will.  Again, space is huge, really really huge, and even assuming that other intelligent life forms have developed out there, the idea of them being able to travel thousands of light years to visit out planet seems pretty slim.

All around fun to think about, regardless of whether or not extraterrestrial life is ever provine.

Happy Birthday Chuck!

Today is the day folks . . . 200 years ago, on February 12th 1809 Mr. Charles Darwin was born.  About fifty years after that he published a book titled On the Origin of Species presenting his theories of natural selection.  Mr. Darwin is unquestionably one of the most important people to have emerged in scientific history and his theories are still bringing up a lot of questions and debate today.  So in memory of Charles Darwin and his work, take a look at the living world today and marvel at its amazing diversity and how it ended up this way.

I love this Picture of Charles Darwin because he looks like a cool old dude; what a beard!

A Look at “On the Origin of Species”

In light of 2009 being the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, as well as the 150th anniversary of the publication of his best known work, On the Origin of Species, the world sceintific community is in celebration taking the time to look closer at the works of the amazing individual.  As such the New York Times provides this wonderful close look at excerpts from On the Origin of Species with comments form a bunch of scientists and their takes on Darwin’s works and words.  Check it out, it is a great way to look closer at one of the most famous texts in Modern science.

On Boron

In light of a discovery of a new form of Boron, which is nearly as hard as a diamond, the New York Times provides a nice little piece on a little understood element.

To be perfectly honest I am quite rough on all my chemistry and remembering what elements had what properties.  I know that Hydrogen is number 1 on the periodic table and the most abundant element in the universe.  I know that carbon is the main building block of life on Earth.  I know that the air we breathe is made up mostly of Nitrogen followed by oxygen (I remember this fact throwing me for a loop when I first learned it).  But really beyond these and a few other basic facts I can’t recall much more about the elements that make up the universe.  Which is too bad really.  Chemistry was my favorite science class in my high school years.  Perhaps I should get back into it by finding a good book on elements or something.