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= '''[[Image:AstrobiologyCover1.jpg|right|318x450px|AstrobiologyCover1.jpg]]Astrobiology and the Search for Life on Mars'''<br>  =
[[Image:AstrobiologyCover1.jpg|right|318x450px|AstrobiologyCover1.jpg]]
and The Search for Life on Mars


= edited by Sarah Kember<br>  =
[http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/ISBN_Numbers ISBN: 978-1-60785-255-1]


__TOC__  
''edited by'' [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology/bio Sarah Kember]
__TOC__
==[http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology/Introduction '''Introduction: What is Life?''']==
J. B. S. Haldane (1949) and Erwin Schrödinger (1944), two of the twentieth century’s most influential scientists, posed the direct question, ‘what is life?’ and declared that it was a question unlikely to find an answer. Life, they suggested, might exceed the ability of science to represent it and even though the sciences of biology, physics and chemistry might usefully describe life’s structures, systems and processes, those sciences should not seek to reduce it to the sum of its parts. While Schrödinger drew attention to the physical structure of living matter, including especially the cell, Haldane asserted that ‘what is common to life is the chemical events’ (1949: 59) and so therefore life might be defined, though not reduced, to ‘a pattern of chemical processes’ (62) involving the use of oxygen, enzymes and so on. ([http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology/Introduction more])


[http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology/Introduction '''Introduction: What is Life?''']<br><br>J. B. S. Haldane (1949) and Erwin Schrödinger (1944), two of the twentieth century’s most influential scientists, posed the direct question, ‘what is life?’ and declared that it was a question unlikely to find an answer. Life, they suggested, might exceed the ability of science to represent it and even though the sciences of biology, physics and chemistry might usefully describe life’s structures, systems and processes, those sciences should not seek to reduce it to the sum of its parts. While Schrödinger drew attention to the physical structure of living matter, including especially the cell, Haldane asserted that ‘what is common to life is the chemical events’ (1949: 59) and so therefore life might be defined, though not reduced, to ‘a pattern of chemical processes’ (62) involving the use of oxygen, enzymes and so on. <br><br> Following Schrödinger and Haldane, Chris McKay’s article, published in 2004 and included in this collection, asks again ‘What is Life – and How Do We Search For It in Other Worlds?’. For him, the still open and unresolved question of life is intrinsically linked to the problem of how to find it (here, or elsewhere) since, he queries, how can we search for something that we cannot adequately define? It should be noted that this dilemma did not deter the founders of Artificial Life, a project that succeeded Artificial Intelligence and that sought to both simulate ‘life-as-we-know-it’ and synthesise ‘life-as-it-could-be’ by reducing life to the informational and therefore computational criteria of self-organisation, self-replication, evolution, autonomy and emergence (Langton, 1996: 40; Kember, 2003). McKay concedes that certain characteristics of life, such as metabolism and motion, can occur without biology, but rather than pursuing contestable (re)definitions of life that could not, for him, constitute the basis for a search, he prefers to ask a more pragmatic question: ‘what does life need?’. The elements that support life – energy, carbon, liquid water, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus – are not contested and, barring only liquid water, they are abundant in the solar system. It seems logical then, McKay argues, to search for life indirectly, by looking at where the water is. The case for liquid water on Mars has, as we will see, a long and argumentative history. In as far as the current case is, as McKay maintains, ‘tight’, then there is justification for his upbeat assessment that, with the correct instruments, it should be possible to find life-as-we-know-it – and even life-as-it-could-be. He writes: ‘while it could be similar at the top (ecological) and bottom (chemical) levels, life on Mars could be quite alien in the middle, in the realm of biochemistry’ (2004: 1261). ([http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology/Introduction more])


== <br>  ==
[[Image:C sarah1.jpg]]
[[File:c_sarah1.jpg]]
== 'Here are phenomena that are passing strange'<br>  ==


Percival Lowell<br>
== 'Here are phenomena that are passing strange'  ==
; Percival Lowell : [http://ia600208.us.archive.org/2/items/mars00lowe/mars00lowe.pdf ''Mars'']
; H. G. Wells : [http://ia700304.us.archive.org/26/items/warofworlds00welluoft/warofworlds00welluoft.pdf ''The War of the Worlds'']


[http://ia600208.us.archive.org/2/items/mars00lowe/mars00lowe.pdf ''Mars'']<br>
== 'An aroma of actuality' - Lowell vs. Wallace on the Nature of Knowledge and Life  ==
; Percival Lowell : [http://ia600304.us.archive.org/23/items/marsanditscanals00loweiala/marsanditscanals00loweiala.pdf ''Mars and Its Canals'']
; Alfred Russell Wallace : [http://ia600409.us.archive.org/20/items/ismarshabitablec00wallrich/ismarshabitablec00wallrich.pdf ''Is Mars Habitable?'']


H. G. Wells<br>
== From Martians with- to Martians as- Microbes ==
; Percival Lowell : [http://ia600504.us.archive.org/22/items/marsabodeoflife00loweiala/marsabodeoflife00loweiala.pdf ''Mars as the Abode of Life'']
; Gilbert V. Levin : [http://livingbooksaboutlife.org/pdfs/Labeled%20_Release_Gil_Levin.pdf The Labeled Release Experiment – Past and Future]


[http://ia700304.us.archive.org/26/items/warofworlds00welluoft/warofworlds00welluoft.pdf ''The War of the Worlds''] [This work is in public domain in the US: UK/EU users please don't click on this link] <br>


== <br>  ==
[[Image:C sarah2.jpg]]


== 'An aroma of actuality' - Lowell vs. Wallace on the nature of knowledge and life<br>  ==
== Alien Communication ==
; NASA : [http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sounds.html Voyager: Sounds of Earth]
; SETI-X : [http://earthscramble.com/ Scrambles of Earth]


Percival Lowell
== What is life?  ==
; Chris P. McKay : [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC516796/pdf/pbio.0020302.pdf What Is Life -- and How Do We Search for It in Other Worlds?]
; Y. N. Zhuravlev, V. A. Avetisov : [http://www.biogeosciences.net/3/281/2006/bg-3-281-2006.pdf The Definition of Life in the Context of Its Origin]


[http://ia600304.us.archive.org/23/items/marsanditscanals00loweiala/marsanditscanals00loweiala.pdf ''Mars and Its Canals'']<br>
== Astrobiology from the Perspective of Sustainability  ==
; Pabulo Henrique Rampelotto : [http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/2/6/1602/pdf Resistance of Microorganisms to Extreme Environmental Conditions and Its Contribution to Astrobiology]
; Seth D. Baum : [http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/2/2/591/pdf Is Humanity Doomed? Insights from Astrobiology]


Alfred Russell Wallace <br>


[http://ia600409.us.archive.org/20/items/ismarshabitablec00wallrich/ismarshabitablec00wallrich.pdf ''Is Mars Habitable?'']<br>
[[Image:C sarah3.jpg]]  


== <br> ==
== Afterword ==
; Sarah Kember : [http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/view/235/216 Creative Evolution?: The Quest for Life (On Mars)]
==  [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology/Attributions Attributions] ==


== From Martians with- to Martians as- microbes<br>  ==
== A 'Frozen' PDF Version of this Living Book ==
 
; [http://livingbooksaboutlife.org/pdfs/bookarchive/Astrobiology.pdf Download a 'frozen' PDF version of this book as it appeared on 7th October 2011]
Percival Lowell<br>
 
[http://ia600504.us.archive.org/22/items/marsabodeoflife00loweiala/marsabodeoflife00loweiala.pdf ''Mars as the Abode of Life'']<br>
 
Gilbert V. Levin, Patricia Ann Straat<br>
 
[http://mars.spherix.com/lifemars/lifemars.htm Life on Mars? The Viking Labeled Release Experiment]<br>
 
== <br>  ==
 
[[File:Sarah7.jpg|200px]] [[File:Sarah8.jpg|200px]] [[File:Sarah9.jpg|200px]]
 
== Alien communication<br>  ==
 
NASA<br>
 
[http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sounds.html Voyager: Sounds of Earth]<br>
 
SETI-X<br>
 
[http://earthscramble.com/ Scrambles of Earth]<br>
 
== <br>  ==
 
== What is life?<br>  ==
 
Chris P. McKay
 
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC516796/pdf/pbio.0020302.pdf What Is Life -- and How Do We Search for It in Other Worlds?]
 
&nbsp;Y. N. Zhuravlev, V. A. Avetisov
 
[http://www.biogeosciences.net/3/281/2006/bg-3-281-2006.pdf The definition of life in the context of its origin]
 
== <br>  ==
 
== Astrobiology from the perspective of sustainability<br>  ==
 
Pabulo Henrique Rampelotto
 
[http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/2/6/1602/pdf Resistance of Microorganisms to Extreme Environmental Conditions and Its Contribution to Astrobiology]
 
Seth D. Baum
 
[http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/2/2/591/pdf Is Humanity Doomed? Insights from Astrobiology] <br>
 
== <br>  ==
[[File:Sarah5.jpg|200px]] [[File:Sarah4.jpg|200px]] [[File:Sarah6.jpg|200px]]
== Afterword<br>  ==
 
Sarah Kember<br>
 
[http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/view/235/216 Creative Evolution?: The Quest for Life (On Mars)]
<br><br>
[http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology/Attributions Attributions]

Latest revision as of 13:52, 19 January 2012

AstrobiologyCover1.jpg
AstrobiologyCover1.jpg

and The Search for Life on Mars

ISBN: 978-1-60785-255-1

edited by Sarah Kember

Introduction: What is Life?

J. B. S. Haldane (1949) and Erwin Schrödinger (1944), two of the twentieth century’s most influential scientists, posed the direct question, ‘what is life?’ and declared that it was a question unlikely to find an answer. Life, they suggested, might exceed the ability of science to represent it and even though the sciences of biology, physics and chemistry might usefully describe life’s structures, systems and processes, those sciences should not seek to reduce it to the sum of its parts. While Schrödinger drew attention to the physical structure of living matter, including especially the cell, Haldane asserted that ‘what is common to life is the chemical events’ (1949: 59) and so therefore life might be defined, though not reduced, to ‘a pattern of chemical processes’ (62) involving the use of oxygen, enzymes and so on. (more)


'Here are phenomena that are passing strange'

Percival Lowell
Mars
H. G. Wells
The War of the Worlds

'An aroma of actuality' - Lowell vs. Wallace on the Nature of Knowledge and Life

Percival Lowell
Mars and Its Canals
Alfred Russell Wallace
Is Mars Habitable?

From Martians with- to Martians as- Microbes

Percival Lowell
Mars as the Abode of Life
Gilbert V. Levin
The Labeled Release Experiment – Past and Future


Alien Communication

NASA
Voyager: Sounds of Earth
SETI-X
Scrambles of Earth

What is life?

Chris P. McKay
What Is Life -- and How Do We Search for It in Other Worlds?
Y. N. Zhuravlev, V. A. Avetisov
The Definition of Life in the Context of Its Origin

Astrobiology from the Perspective of Sustainability

Pabulo Henrique Rampelotto
Resistance of Microorganisms to Extreme Environmental Conditions and Its Contribution to Astrobiology
Seth D. Baum
Is Humanity Doomed? Insights from Astrobiology


Afterword

Sarah Kember
Creative Evolution?: The Quest for Life (On Mars)

Attributions

A 'Frozen' PDF Version of this Living Book

Download a 'frozen' PDF version of this book as it appeared on 7th October 2011