Lives on Earth

cells

  • Are There Any GOOD Viruses?

    Are there any viruses that are good for us? Any that will rejuvenate a liver, improve the digestion, smooth the skin – in addition to those that bring on polio, smallpox, Lyme, HIV, and the flu? After all, certain bacteria… Continue reading

  • Stem Cells: How To Build a Body

    Until recently I didn’t know much about stem cells except that they produce other kinds of cells and that the medical research on them was controversial. But in the context of the history of life, it turns out, their importance… Continue reading

  • Our Actual “Eve”

    She lived about 150,000 years ago in southern Africa. These days she is known as Mitochondrial Eve. The “Eve” part is a little misleading since unlike the Biblical Eve, Mitochondrial Eve wasn’t the first or only woman alive at the… Continue reading

  • The Body Electric

    We are juiced. From head to toe, electric signals pour into the brain from eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin as the raw data for what we see on a screen, hear across the room, feel at our fingertips. In… Continue reading

  • Breath: Divine Gas In a Smart Body

    The word breath most often refers to the air we pull in to and pump out of our lungs (or to the action of doing so) as in “Take a deep breath.” But we also give the same word loftier qualities… Continue reading

  • Cyanobacteria: R-E-S-P-E-C-T

    We owe cyanobacteria our respect. They have done a great deal for us. Even though they have one nasty trait that I’ll mention later. One reason to respect them is that they are our elders, by a long shot. Cyanobacteria… Continue reading