We had synthesised a virus particle outside living cells – thereby violating the dogma that viruses absolutely need a living-cell environment in order to replicate. Professor Eckard Wimmer
Artificial Life Created In Lab. Daily Mail headline 21st May 2010
Everything that lives
Lives not alone, nor for itself. William Blake, The Book of Thel
If we did discover and contact life elsewhere it would be the greatest thing for mankind that ever happened. Patrick Moore, astronomer, interview Danny Dyer
This non-human force exists. And be assured that behind the scenes they control everything. Bill Cooper
It would be very surprising if the Galaxy is not just teeming with life. Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, interview Patrick Moore & Sir Fred Hoyle, The Sky at Night
The possibilities are infinite. And infinitely intriguing. Alien life could range from simple green slime that doesn’t do much but drip, to more advanced animals. Something with a bit more bite ... There could be life-forms so strange we wouldn’t even recognise them as life. Perhaps there are really exotic creatures that live at the centre of stars. Stephen Hawking’s Universe: Into the Universe: Aliens: Are We Alone? BBC 1997
Almost any life-form that is physically possible is likely to exist somewhere. ibid.
They have yet to find life. I don’t think we should give up. Beneath the Martian surface NASA’s Spirit Rover discovered these salts. Which are formed in contact with liquid water. Surface satellite images reveal drainage patterns and erosion by the kinds caused by rivers and oceans. There may well still be moisture under Mars’ surface. Moisture that could perhaps support life. ibid.
I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image. Stephen Hawking
The extremophile is generally a word for micro-organisms that live in physical or chemical conditions that are much more extreme than you and I are used to. People have found them growing at very low PH, that’s very acid conditions, very alkaline conditions, they can grow at temperatures, they can grow in the freezing ice sheets of Antarctica. Professor Charles Cockell, The Open University
An army of 300 million sperm in an epic quest for fertilisation ... We can peer into this secret world and bring this epic struggle to life. Curiosity: How Does Life Begin? Discovery 2011
There are more than a quarter million babies born on this planet every day. ibid.
After twenty-four hours of intense struggle this single simple cell has overcome odds of a trillion to one to deliver its genetic payload to its target. ibid.
For the first time in Earth’s history man has created synthetic life. Creating Synthetic Life, Science 2010
Venter’s team developed a new technique called shot-gun sequencing. It breaks the DNA molecules into little pieces. ibid.
If all the letters are put into the correct order and in the right place so the molecule can sustain itself and reproduce you have created a living organism. ibid.
For the first time in science Carole Lartigue has turned one species into another. ibid.
This is the first self-replicating species that we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer. Dr Craig Venter
You take a chromosome from one cell and you put it in another; technologically that turned out to be extremely difficult to do. Craig Venter
The undertaking to pursue the creation of life is one of the most important projects that mankind has ever attempted. Dr Arthur L Caplan, University of Pennsylvania
We know that liquid water is essential to Life. Life probably got started in a water environment. Laura Danly, Griffith Observatory
Inside every one of us there lies a mystery. Something creates the rich and intense experience of being alive. But what exactly is it? What is it that makes a living thing so utterly different from a non-living thing? The struggle to explain the sheer wonder of life has been one of the most productive challenges science has faced. Michael Mosley, The Story of Science: Power, Proof & Passion, BBC 2010
The evidence for slow change was everywhere. Geologists looked at waterfalls, and saw how the constant flow of water had gradually eroded the surrounding rock. They saw how rain had inexorably worn away the tops of mountains. And how the slow movement of glaciers had carved out entire valleys. They came to realise that the single most important factor in why the world looks the way it does was Time. And lots of it. ibid.
In attempting to explain these mysteries [Alfred] Wegener would transform geology. Science would have to embrace a new very different history of life on Earth. ibid.
It’s now clear that the story of life and the story of our planet which were once seen as separate are actually intrinsically linked. The evolution of new life has been driven by climate change, by asteroid impacts and by the slow motion collision of continents. It turns out that we and every other living creature are marching to the drumbeat of our violent planet. ibid.
This is the story of the making of you ... The beginnings of life: eight crucial and perilous weeks. Countdown to Life: The Extraordinary Making of You, BBC 2015
The amount of green veg you eat during that critical period around the time of conception can have a significant impact on the rest of your life. ibid.
Just one in every ten thousand people have organs that have ended up on the wrong side. ibid.
One of a tiny handful of people who are born without fingerprints. Michael Mosley, Countdown to Life: The Extraordinary Making of You II
So how did we all end up with such different immune systems? ibid.
One in ten thousand of us is transgender. ibid.
For thousands of years we’ve wondered whether we’re alone in the universe ... All of our searching is leading to one ultimate goal: finding intelligent life somewhere in the vastness of the universe. Extreme Universe s1e1: Is Anyone Out There? National Geographic 2010
So is Earth the only planet where life has emerged in this vast cosmos? Are we alone or are we part of something bigger? A web of life that stretches light years through the universe. But for many years the question was taboo to science. ibid.
We thought all life needed access to sunlight. But working with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Bob Ballard found a thriving eco-system where there was no sunlight. ibid.
Europa sits well outside the Goldilocks Zone. But just like at the bottom of Earth’s oceans, hydrothermic vents could be the energy source needed for life to emerge. Those ocean depths could be home to some bizarre life-forms, huge tube-worms feeding on the minerals coming from inside Europa’s core. There’s no telling what kind of life exists in Europa’s oceans. ibid.
In 1977 life was thought to be tied to the sun. No-one thought at that time that life could form around a hydro-thermal vent. Dr Peter Ward, astrobiology University of Washington
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing in the bushes, and various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp Earth and reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and yet so dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. Thus, from the war of Nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object we can think of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of Life, with its several powers having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one, and that whilst this planet has gone cycling along according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species
The knowledge that this kind of life that we know of in this planet is not the only one will have a profound influence whether that other life is more advanced or less advanced than we are. The very knowledge that life can originate spontaneously will have I believe very profound effects on the thinking of man. Dr Harold P Klein, NASA Ames Research Centre, interview In Search of Ancient Astronauts, 1973
The potential for life in the universe is immense. Ramesh Patel
I am sure that we are not alone in the universe. Stephen Spielberg