We've just come to the end of a DACE course on "Life in the Universe". Martin Hendry, Graeme Ruxton, Helen Fraser (Strathclyde) and I took a look at several aspects of this perennially fascinating subject.
Even the title opens up whole classes of questions:
"life" - what is it, anyway?
"the universe": how big? containing what sorts of objects? why does it look the way it does?
"in": why life on Earth? and not lots of other places? where else might we find it? can we spot it if it's out there? are there deep connections between our own emergence from inorganic matter and the universe in which we find ourselves?
From SEED magazine, here's a very nice blog posting touching on similar topics, with a leaning to biochemistry and the insights to be gained from artificial organisms, and a few very illuminating phrases, like "software that makes its own hardware". And emphasising that, between the fundamental questions associated with the very large and the very small, there is also the question of the emergence of complexity, of "life and its place in the cosmos" where a "revolution in understanding" will be just as fundamental.
Compared to professional research, a course like this is a different sort of fun, a chance to look up from the detailed equations or observations to the big picture. The sort of teaching experience that involves out-of-the ordinary conversations with colleagues and people from a huge range of backgrounds, and sends you back to your research with new questions in mind. Just as much fun for us as for the participants; just what we should be doing in a university, consultation or none.
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