Ah, science...

Well, I don't know about the end of life on earth, if you ask me for a fixed date, that is. But I can tell you for certain that it will happen sooner or later. What scientists can tell you with a lot more certainty though is that the earth is tilting. Well, it always was tilted at the angle of 23 and a half degrees. But all the melting ice is creating more water which is accumulating in a slightly lop-sided fashion, causing the weight of the earth to increase more on one side than on the other, thereby affecting the already existing tilt. They might need to shift the position of the poles in a few years, with the North Pole over Alaska, for example. What it means for the earth on the larger scale, I do not know, and I am not about to make any random dire predictions.

However, I do have something more to say about the idea of life, even as we know it (whatever limits that imposes), existing on earth, and on earth alone. Couple of weeks ago, scientists analysing a piece of comet grabbed by a NASA probe in 2004 found in the space rock glycine, an amino acid. That is one of the fundamental building blocks of life, and if it is spread all over space, there is little reason to think why the same couldn't be true for life itself. Such is how the scientists are theorising, and I more than agree with them. So much also for these damn creationists who imagine that some sculptor kind of god moulded them out of putty with his very own hands.

On the other hand, however, one must take science with a pinch of salt too. Take the case of man landing on the moon, for instance. When Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin Jr went on their triumphant world tour upon their return from our satellite, they also carried with them pieces of moon rock to gift to countries that they visited. So last week, it turns out that the piece kept in Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is actually only a piece of petrified wood, which quite surely is not from the moon. Expectedly, the US has offered no explanation for the Dutch discovery.

But then again, science is cool. Imagine, they have actually managed to image the chemical structure of a single molecule. Yes, image, not photograph. For those who understand elements of nanoscience, I don't need to explain why. And for those who don't understand it, I can't be bothered. But to me, it sounds really cool to think that it is possible to image not just the shape of a singe molecule but even chemical bonds!