Books and recommendations from Scientific American
Image: W.W. Norton
Weird Life: The Search for Life That Is Very, Very Different from Our Own
by David Toomey
W. W. Norton, 2013 ($25.95)
Life, researchers have learned, can sometimes thrive in places that would kill most organisms. The strangest life bathes in acid (multihued bacteria growing in Yellowstone National Park), floats through clouds (microbial algae, fungi and bacteria), and flourishes around boiling hydrothermal vents (giant clams and tube worms sustained by heat-loving bacteria). As English professor Toomey tracks the work of scientists who hunt for such extreme examples, he explores the very definition of life. He also envisions the truly weird life-forms that might exist elsewhere in the universe?such as bacteria that ride on icy comets or even ?living? networks of charged dust grains that circle black holes and communicate with one another electromagnetically.
This article was originally published with the title Recommended: Weird Life.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=98d1eb129306752b9f5e77291bae2bea
chris anderson rondo suspended bay bridge presidents day band of brothers presidents george washington
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.