Tag Archives: life

Don’t Forget The “Ni”.

Darren asks:

This pops up in video games relatively frequently, and I’ve often wondered:  would it actually be possible for an organism to evolve in (or evolve the capability to survive in) the vacuum of space?  If it’s possible at all, what qualities would they need to have (or what qualities would be especially beneficial) and how complex could such organisms realistically become?

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Just Another Bug Hunt.

Topical science time! This recent news article caught my eye the other day. Russian scientists have succeeded in drilling through the 3.7 km thick layer of ice covering Lake Vostok in Antartica and hope to be able to extract samples from the lake later this year. Lake Vostok has been completely sealed off from the surface for about twenty million years. This makes it a very interesting place to look for life forms, and what they’re doing in Lake Vostok right now is not a million miles away from the way we’ll likely find the first alien life forms.

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The Fermi Paradox And Other Aquatic Mammals.

 I apologise in advance if this post doesn’t contain much science. As we’ve seen astronomy is mostly based around an astounding amount of ingenuity and bloody-mindedness backed up by not a small quantity of guesswork, but when it comes to dealing with questions like the Fermi Paradox we don’t even have enough information to make an educated guess. As a result things can start to get a little metaphysical, almost bordering on sci-fi at times.

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