Life beyond Earth

Is there life in the outer space? This one question still remains elusive to man, the most intelligent inhabitants of this earth. A recent article opines that the reason we have not been able to so far find any evidence for extra terrestrial life is that we have not been looking hard (or deep enough). Such is the vastness of the cosmos that even with the most powerful telescopes and radio signal detectors we have covered very little of the outer space. May be in a corner millions s of light years away, there is life ???If there is of what shape and form it is? Life as we know on our earth could be just an example of life, that may not be the defining definition? Are there other forms of life ? Are they also searching for us and wondering about the same questions? Are they even capable of searching for us? Stephen Hawking advised us against trying to communicate to the outer space as he feared that aliens more capable than us could invade our earth and capture our only home! So is there an inter galactic fence like a special black hole cutting  off any possibilities of detection between species ? Questions and more questions? But now coming back to the central question? Is there life outside our earth in any form by whatever definition?  There are several possibilities.. if we assign numerical values to the number of planets which can host life..0, 1, 2, 3, so on. We can only say for sure only two things.. rule out 0 since we know that there is life on earth and one of the possible values is 1. But what about the other values? are there 2, 3, 4, a 1000 or a million planets with forms of life?   

World and Living Today

This seems to be an age of catastrophic events. The Tsunami in Thailand and floods in Kerala are fresh in the memory but there is a sense of foreboding that we have not seen the last of such natural tragedies. With the high concentration of people in pockets of land, any disaster is bound to result in a huge loss of lives. There is a debate about climate change- whether its caused by man ( which includes everything created by man) or just a natural phenomenon. Those who believe that climate change is induced by man present strong evidence - rising temperatures, hitting record highs each passing year, increasing levels of Carbon di Oxide in the atmosphere, and so on. A new term Anthropocene has been coined to denote the era where man's influence is being marked on the earth.