I've been reading Michael Gruber's Tropic of Night, a stunningly good novel of suspense. On pages 80-81 I encountered the following, part of a lecture given to a college audience by anthropologist Marcel Vierchau ( Read more... )

http://monstrous.com/Monstrous_Science/Biology_s_dark_matter_hints_at_fourth_domain_of_life.html

Step far enough back from the tree of life and it begins to look quite simple. At its heart are just three stout branches, ( Read more... )

Lately I've been reading Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe by Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee (http://www.amazon.com/Rare-Earth-Complex-Uncommon-Universe/dp/0387952896). In the process I learned an extremely disturbing ( Read more... )