Larry Moran passes on the rules of the game: go to the Wellcome Library’s new image bank and find your favorite scientific image. Here’s my pick: the first good picture of the brain, drawn by Christopher Wren in 1664 for Thomas Willis, the first neurologist. (More on Willis and Wren here.)
[Credit: Wellcome Institute, Creative Commons License.]
Originally published July 9, 2007. Copyright 2007 Carl Zimmer.
The New York Times, July 8, 2007
NEW YORK — A panel of scientists convened by America’s leading scientific advisory group says the hunt for extraterrestrial life should be greatly expanded to include what they call “weird life”: organisms that lack DNA or other molecules found in life as we know it.
“The committee’s investigation makes clear that life is possible in forms different from those on Earth,” the scientists conclude in their report, “The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems,” published by the National Research Council.
Continue reading “Scientists call for wider search for alien life”
The New York Times, July 7, 2007
A panel of scientists convened by the country’s leading scientific advisory group says the hunt for extraterrestrial life should be greatly expanded to include what they call “weird life”: organisms that lack DNA or other molecules found in life as we know it.
“The committee’s investigation makes clear that life is possible in forms different from those on Earth,” the scientists conclude in their report, “The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems,” published yesterday by the National Research Council.
Continue reading “Scientists Urge a Search for Life Not as We Know It”
Over the past few years, more and more scientists have been talking about the possibility that life exists, or can theoretically exist, in exotic forms that lack DNA, or perhaps even carbon or water. I’ve been keeping up with the conversation, and writing articles about it in the New York Times, Discover, Popular Mechanics, and, most recently, in Seed.
Today I report in the New York Times that a panel of scientists arranged by the National Academies of Sciences has issued the first official weird life report. They’re calling for a more aggressive search for strange forms of life. You can read the report for yourself here.
The New York Times, July 6, 2007
The hunt for extraterrestrial life should be dramatically expanded, a panel of scientists convened by the country’s leading scientific advisory group said today, to include what they call “weird life,” organisms that lack DNA or other molecules found in life as we know it.
“The committee’s investigation makes clear that life is possible in forms different from those on Earth,” the scientists concluded. Their report, “The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems,” was published today by the National Research Council of the National Academies of Sciences and posted on the NAS web site, www.nationalacademies.org.
Continue reading “Expanded Search for Extraterrestrial Life Urged”