Life – The Primordial Scoop

Spacek vs. Cleland: is term ‘life’ useful or useless in astrobiology?

We enjoyed a heated, in-person discussion about the usefulness of life during a debate hosted by the University of Florida. Although we both maintained our divergent positions, we discovered that our advice to astrobiologists is identical: look for anomalies.

By Jan Spacek February 5, 2024Astrobiology, Life, Microscoop, Philosophy3 Comments

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Spacek vs. Benner: Thanksgiving showdown about life on Mars

A heated debate between Steven Benner and Jan Spacek, discussing life on Mars, its metabolism, and utility of a Steven's model of Martian metabolism.

By admin November 23, 2023Life, Life on Mars, Mars, NASA1 Comment

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A way forward for NASA astrobiology

Last week at the Mars Society Convention I had an opportunity to talk to fellow astrobiologists, leaders of NASA Mars Exploration Program, and concerned public. Here are my thoughts.

By Jan Spacek October 12, 2023Astrobiology, Life, Life on Mars, Mars, NASANo Comments

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Science, Hype, and Prebiotic Chemistry

Commenting on our report that basalt glass catalyzes formation of polyribonucleic acid, Jack Szostak found it "very frustrating that the authors have made an interesting initial findings but then decided to go with the hype rather than the science". This offers an opportunity to discuss classical chemical structure proof, and the timing of scientific publications.

By Steven A. Benner June 18, 2022Astrobiology, Life, Origin of Life, Single Scoops6 Comments

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Are Venusians ‘life’?

Apology for beating the dead horse yet again, …but why should we assume that ‘life’ is useful for astrobiologists now, when it was useless for virologists for over a century?

By Jan Spacek June 3, 2022Astrobiology, Life, Philosophy, Venus3 Comments

Astrobiology Life Philosophy

Why the term ‘life’ is useless in astrobiology

A post to make you laugh and then perhaps think about the meaninglessness of ‘life’ as a scientific term.

By Jan Spacek May 26, 2022Astrobiology, Life, PhilosophyNo Comments

Astrobiology Life Philosophy

Why astrobiologists should NOT get rid of the term ‘life’

Carol Cleland rebuts Spacek's argument about uselessness of the term 'life' to astrobiologists. According to her 'life' is useful despite our inability to define it.

By Carol Cleland May 24, 2022Astrobiology, Life, Philosophy1 Comment

Astrobiology Life

Cleland & Grinspoon response to Benner: Do synthetic microbes provide another example of life?

The NfoLD's White Paper on Standards of Evidence in Life Detection opened a discussion on this blog. In this piece Carol Cleland and David Grinspoon tear down Benner's "second example" of life.

By Carol Cleland May 19, 2022Astrobiology, Life1 Comment

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Finding Life, the Universal Way

Lee Cronin's contribution to our ongoing discussion about the universal agnostic biosignatures: The assembly theory is the key.

By Guest Author April 29, 2022Astrobiology, Life, Origin of LifeNo Comments

Astrobiology Life

The Problem with Agnostic Biosignatures

Agnostic criteria, which are currently very popular among NASA scientists, are not truly agnostic and share many of the same problems with a definitional approach for searching for unfamiliar forms of life.

By Carol Cleland April 21, 2022Astrobiology, LifeNo Comments

Astrobiology Life

Grave Expectations

The problem with trying to codify an official protocol for recognizing biosignatures: We can try to devise rules for how detecting alien life should unfold, but E.T. might not play along.

By Guest Author April 19, 2022Astrobiology, Life1 Comment

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NASA Headquarters Misses the Ball. Polyelectrolytes as the Key to Agnostic Life Finding

Synthetic biology, 20 years ago, taught NASA how to search generally, agnostically, and universally for alien life. NASA still does not understand the opportunity

By Steven A. Benner April 16, 2022Life, Life on Mars, NASA, Synthetic BiologyNo Comments