Asking a biologist to define 'life' is a bit like looking-up the word 'definition' in a dictionary — it's as if you're questioning their very existence. Biologists like myself don't agree on what life ...

Scientists have debated the definition of life for decades, but they still lack a consensus on the answer. Experts believe that "edge cases" make life difficult to define and blur boundaries across ...

In 1813, the East India Company’s James Forbes published an explosive story about monkeys. While traveling in India, he had stayed beneath an enormous banyan tree near the Narmada River. One day, a ...

To successfully look for life beyond our own solar system, astrobiologists desperately need a viable definition of life. Even after a century or so of debate, they lack a viable universal definition ...

A central question of astrobiology concerns the origin and distribution of life in the Universe. For this reason, astrobiology can be considered to fall within the science called transitional biology.

What are the physics of life? That is more than just a philosophical question—it has practical implications for our search for life elsewhere in the galaxy. We know what Earth life looks like, on a ...

We sometimes ask what the meaning of life is, because we experience our daily routines as pointless and repetitive. If we feel listless and apathetic, life often seems to us devoid of purpose. We may ...