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Articles on Life

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A modern arthropod (the centipede Cormocephalus) crawls over its Cambrian ‘flatmate’ (the trilobite Estaingia). Michael Lee / South Australian Museum and Flinders University

Life quickly finds a way: the surprisingly swift end to evolution’s big bang

Modern animals took over our planet much more quickly than previously thought. This has both welcome and disturbing implications for the future of life on our rapidly changing planet
An artist’s impression of Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. It is the first planet that NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed to orbit in a star’s habitable zone - the region around a star where liquid water, a requirement for life on Earth, could persist. NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

Curious Kids: why has nobody found any life outside of Earth?

Life could exist in another solar system in a different part our galaxy. Or in another galaxy far away. We don’t have the perfect technology yet to study such far away places but we’re still trying.
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Why biodiversity is key to our survival

There is an urgent need to reconsider the importance of diversity. It is not a simple wealth. It is both a property of the living and an essential condition for its survival.
Many of the most advanced robots are inspired by nature. US Department of Defense

Why do robots look like animals and humans?

Boston Dynamic’s robots are inspired by nature for good reason.
Here, an alien crew member, Saru on Star Trek: Discovery. We often rely on science fiction to guide our expectations of alien life. We can hope lessons about accepting beings very different from yourself can be extracted by the series end. (Courtesy of CBS Studios)

Star Trek discovery of alien life veers away from likely reality

Star Trek: Discovery explores our corner of the block – just a fraction of the galaxy. Some stars are better candidates for intelligent alien life, and it may not be anything like we imagine.
It’s happened before: why we need to plan for the next doomsday event that could wipe out much of life on Earth. Shutterstock/solarseven

How to backup life on Earth ahead of any doomsday event

NASA says there are ten “potentially hazardous” asteroids close to Earth. Good reason to make sure we have a backup plan should any catastrophic event wipe of much of life on Earth.
How many species of frog are in the picture? Genetics often says ‘more than we thought’. Michael Lee (Flinders University & South Australian Museum)

The Earth’s biodiversity could be much greater than we thought

The Earth is full of many varied species from the largest mammals to the tiniest organisms. But we now think there could be ten times more species than was originally thought.

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