August 22nd, 2008
The most famous Earth-meteor collision occurred 65 million years ago, just before the dinosaurs became extinct. That even was blamed for the great extinction. There have been even bigger collisions, earlier in the planet’s history. Some 200 million years ago an even greater holocaust was attributed to a huge impact. Perhaps the greatest impact was with a Mars-sized object; which created the Moon.
No life could have survived the collision responsible for the moon. Earth was molten for tens of thousands of years after that one. But the planet did recover from first two of the above.
In my second book, “Boundary Layer: Restoring Life to a Dead Planet,” I describe how man might help in such a restoration. There the major theme is bringing the planet back to a close approximation to what was lost.
August 21st, 2008
Lawrence L. Lapin
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a body that does not age? As long as some disease or accident didn’t take your life, you could live forever. You would be virtually immortal. What would you be willing to pay for such status?
Immortality has been sought after since man walked the Earth. Historical figures, epitomized by Ponce DeLeon, have searched for a Fountain of Youth. Eternal life has been popularized with fictional accounts, like “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Adam has even found himself sometimes lusting for it. In abstract, living forever seems universally attractive.
But some argue that virtual immortality would be a tremendous cross to bear.
Whether or not living things were not created to be immortal is a deep philosophical issue, best left to religious scholars. One scientist, discussed in my book, Super Virus: Immortal Sins (see note at the end of this article), insists that the rhythm of life depends on death and new birth. He maintains it would be tragic if the old never died, because then there would be no room for the young. Old ways would be replaced only at a snail’s pace. The scientist maintains that the whole basis of evolution was death and birth, in a never-ending cycle.
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