Weird Life: The Search for Life That Is Very, Very Different From Our Own - David Toomey [epub]

“Weird indeed, and not a little wonderful.”―*Nature*

In the 1980s and 1990s, in places where no one thought it possible, scientists found organisms they called extremophiles: lovers of extremes. There were bacteria in volcanic hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, single-celled algae in Antarctic ice floes, and fungi in the cooling pools of nuclear reactors.

But might there be life stranger than the most extreme extremophile? Might there be, somewhere, another kind of life entirely? In fact, scientists have hypothesized life that uses ammonia instead of water, life based not in carbon but in silicon, life driven by nuclear chemistry, and life whose very atoms are unlike those in life we know. In recent years some scientists have begun to look for the tamer versions of such life on rock surfaces in the American Southwest, in a “shadow biosphere” that might impinge on the known biosphere, and even deep within human tissue. They have also hypothesized more radical versions that might survive in Martian permafrost, in the cold ethylene lakes on Saturn’s moon Titan, and in the hydrogen-rich atmospheres of giant planets in other solar systems. And they have imagined it in places off those worlds: the exotic ices in comets, the vast spaces between the stars, and―strangest of all―parallel universes.

Distilling complex science in clear and lively prose, David Toomey illuminates the research of the biological avant-garde and describes the workings of weird organisms in riveting detail. His chapters feature an unforgettable cast of brilliant scientists and cover everything from problems with our definitions of life to the possibility of intelligent weird life. With wit and understanding that will delight scientists and lay readers alike, Toomey reveals how our current knowledge of life forms may account for only a tiny fraction of what’s really out there.

10 illustrations

**

From Booklist

In 1977, when marine geologists discovered an abundance of never-before-seen life-forms thriving near superhot hydrothermal vents on the Pacific Ocean floor, the limits of life suddenly expanded beyond what biologists previously thought possible. Since then, scientists have discovered algae living in Antarctic brine and fungi feasting on inorganic chemicals in rock. Dubbed extremophiles for their proficiency in adapting to extreme conditions, these organisms all nonetheless incorporate DNA and have a common terrestrial ancestor. But what if there are forms of life on other planets composed of utterly different molecules? What would such creatures, large or small, look like? In 2002 a National Research Council committee pondered these exact questions, and their answers inspired this mind-bending exploration of weird life, by veteran technical writer Toomey. After cataloging the varieties of improbable life here on earth, Toomey takes a tour of the committee’s report and speculative fiction, citing such examples as silicon-based ETs to sentient oceans. Biologists and sf fans alike will find much here to challenge their preconceived notions of life in the universe. --Carl Hays

Review

A breakneck tour through natural history, encounters of an impossible kind, researchers as weird as the organisms they pursue that leads the reader to wonder where science ends and fantasy begins. (Richard Fortey - New York Times Book Review)

Conveys these far-out theories with precision and humor. (Jascha Hoffman - New York Times)

Toomey is calm and clear-eyed. . . . A good man to have watching the skies, and the ocean floor. (AV Club)

Starred review. An ingenious overview of anything that might be alive. (Kirkus Reviews)