Eyes

Humans often put most emphasis on sight, since it is arguably the most important of our senses. Many other animals rely heavily on sight. For living in an action-packed light-filled world, sight is very useful since there is nothing faster than light.

Previously it was mentioned that eyes have evolved on earth many times. This tells us that eyes are a very good invention and not so difficult to build or evolve. There is an awful lot of electromagnetic radiation (light) flying oround our universe. It is "relatively" safe, cheap, consistent and abundent. What's more, eyes are passive, meaning that you don't need to emit anything that might give you away when stalking prey or trying to hide.

The intricate workings of the eyes are often cited by "antievolutionists" as an example of proof of intelligent design. Their argument says that the function of the eye is totally dependent on the existence of many specialised structures. Take one away and the eye will cease to be useful. "Half an eye is not an eye," as they say. Since evolution proceeds in small random steps and requires everything to work throughout the lineage, something as complex as the eye could not have come about by chance alone. However, this line of argument is completely wrong and displays a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution.
Well, half an eye is an eye. Take out the lense from our eyes and although the image would be blurred we could still tell where safe shadows were, and see the direction of large, fast-moving blobs to avoid. Stretch the retina onto the surface of the skin and we lose the ability to tell direction. At least we can still tell the difference between light and dark, safety and danger and with two eyes we still have some kind of direction information.

If we look at the animal kingdom, we see many eyes, in all stages. There are advanced lensed eyes like you find in vertebrates and cephalopods and sophisticated compound eyes of insects. At the lower end, some bacteria display phototaxis (heading towards light) and worms have a very basic ability to tell the difference between light and dark, hardly what you would call eyes but at least they have the necessary first steps: light sensitive cells and information processing. There are also a range of eyes in between, such as those of the flatworm, which are more like simple pits of light sensitive cells. It is probably a eye like this that our early ancestors started out with, gradually deepening the pit and refining the structure to increase directionality, resolution, sensitivity, exposure control, focus and many other functions.

Not only are there many types of eyes, but they also come in all shapes and size and a wide variety of abilities. The largest eyes on earth belong to the giant squid and can measure over 10 inches in diameter. Four-eyed fish have eyes split into two, the top for focussing out of water and the bottom calibrated for looking through it. The mantis shrimp eye has ten colour channels, in contrast with our meagre three. Some birds have an extra fovea, giving them an additional zoomed image. Goldfish have and extended sensitivity to light wavelengths, they can see infrared and ultraviolet. Some spiders move their retinas around inside their head instead of swivelling their eyes. There are many more examples of extraordinary eyes.

Eyes on earth usually come in pairs. This is mainly because of the ubiquitous nature of bilateral symmetry. However, having eyes in pairs allows for binocular vision, which allows fairly accurate perception of depth, based on two images. A very useful ability. Having a single eye makes this almost impossible. Also, having eyes set in a "head" close to the "brain" makes the distance the singals have to travel shorter, thereby speeding up response time.

Most eyes focus light through a small hole and perhaps a lens to project an image of the world onto a sheet of light sensitive cells, which is then fed into the central nervous system. Biology is very good at creating rounded structures, which is perfect when it comes to making eyes. Thus it is not unreasonable to imagine aliens to have eyes that are similar to those found on earth. Since eyes are delicate they need to have protection like eyelids, it is a good idea to be able to move them, either swivelling around inside or waving on the end of stalks.

This is just a collection of facts and thoughts on the nature of eyes in the animal kingdom. I would certainly expect eyes to have evolved along similar lines on other planets. They may vary in shape, structure, size and sensitivity, but at a very basic level, there will be remarkable similarities.

Coevolution

In a previous post, there was a discussion on how the environment will direct the course of evolution for a species through natural selection. The environment is a very complex thing. Things like, temperature, terrain, water availability, chemicals and many more things will possibly influence a species. However there is another aspect to the environment, which is even more important: other organisms. A species doesn't evolve in isolation, it is a part of the unimaginably complex biosphere, a single cog in the machine. Most species lie somewhere in the middle of the food chain. Most animals have to find things to eat while avoiding being eaten. Animals also have to compete with other species and also members of the same species for limited resources.

These other species will have a profound effect on evolution, in fact, they are its main driving force. What makes it interesting is that these other species are not static either, they are evolving too. Evolving new strategies and strengths, new behaviours and bodies. It make evolution dynamic and unpredictable. This is referred to as coevolution and is important for every single species.

An analogy often used to describe coevolution is that of an arms race. Two superpowers are in perpetual fear of each other. One builds a threatening weapon so the other retailiates by building a bigger one. The first then builds more of them and the second invents a more terrifying one. The process repeats and the arms get more and more advanced, but in reality, the dominance of one or the other stays very small, dispite the technological advances. The same happens in evolution and is referred to as the "red queen effect", a phrase coined by biologist Richard Dawkins. This comes from Lewis Caroll's "Alice in Wonderland" where Alice and the red queen have to run faster and faster in order just to stay in the same place. The concept is that predator and prey species will coevolve together, both getting more and more advanced but with the kill ratio remaining roughly the same.

As an example, take wolves and deer. The species have a typical predator-prey relationship. Sometimes the wolves get the deer, and sometimes they don't. That is just part of life. Now, suppose the deer evolve a better sense of smell and can smell the wolves earlier as they stalk up to them. On average, this will be beneficial to the deer and so the ratio of kills drops, meaning more competition for the wolves. The wolves adapt by evolving to be faster. This swings the advantage back to the wolves. The deer reciprocate by evolving the ability to jump higher. Then the wolves evolve better pack communication and so it goes. Of course, this is a very limited, one-dimensional example. In reality it is not so simple, with many aspects evolving all at the same time and other factors, other species, having an effect.

There are many attributes which can evolve. Better speed, strength, agility, stealth, intelligence, camouflage, senses and many more will help both predator and prey. Also there are some more specific attributes like offensive and defensive abilities. Some examples are horns, poison, armour, fangs, claws, detachable tails, bright colours. The list goes on and on. In addition, other aspects of the environment will affect the coevolution. Owls and flacons both prey on mice. The difference is that owls hunt at night and have therefore gone for stealth, while falcons rely on speed. However, they both need very good eyesight.

Coevolution isn't just restricted to predator prey relationships. Symbiosis is where two or more species coevolve to mutual benefit. Host parasite relationship is one sided where one benefits at the expense of the other, Sexual selection is where members of the same sex of a species coevolve against each other to be sexually attractive to the opposite sex. There are other examples and some of these will be discussed further in other articles.

Coevolution is a universal, therefore we can be sure that these "arms races" will be happening on any planet with life. It is an inevitable consequence of evolution. When designing aliens, it is often a good idea to think about its place in the ecosystem. What kinds of animals prey on it. What defenses has it evolved. What kind of food it eats. Does it have to catch its food or is food abundent? The answers to these questions will affect how the creature looks and behaves. If you are designing alien species together, then you should think about their relationship and how that would have affected their evolution. Thinking about the relationships between the species we see around us can help us keep our imagination constructs plausible when designing alien worlds.

Startrekisms - part 2

Star Trek is a worldwide phenomenon, much more popular than its original creator, Gene Rodenberry, could ever have have imagined. However, I have a slight problem with it, as I do with most mainstream science fiction: the aliens. Don't get me wrong, I love Star Trek and it is easy for me to suspend my disbelief while watching it. I love following the lives of Captain Picard and the crew as they boldly go around the galaxy finding themselves in sticky situations and generally getting into trouble. However, since people first watched the original Enterprise with its lovable crew the aliens have almost always been humans-with-funny-noses. This is understandable since creating for television in the 1960's with a small budget and tight time constraints, it wasn't possible to have animatronics, or fullbody latex costumes, or computer graphics (CG). Actors were all they had.
Another slight problem is the one-dimensional aspect of the alien species' behaviour. For example, in Star Trek, many alien species are created by taking a single human 'quirk' and driving it to the extreme: The klingons are honourable, the vulcans are logical, the romulans are sneaky and the ferengi are moneygrabbing. By pushing the aliens' personalities to the extreme, it is making them appear slightly alien, while still allowing the viewers to identify with them and kind of understand why they do the things they do. It also makes for some interesting plot devices.
This tendency of science fiction creators to push a single personality trait leads on to a somewhat more unforgivable tendency. That is of thinly disguising a real earth culture or minority as alien in order to create a species or, worse still, spout some social commentry. Star Trek is guilty of that. For example, the klingons are mixture of viking and japanese, the ferengi are jews, the cardassians are nazis, and so on. People argue about the real-world inspiration of these species but the point is that they are created that way to allow lay-people to understand the plots at a cultural level. Some episodes are overtly blatent in their twisting of sterotypes. The original series of Star Trek had an episode called "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", which was a clumsy, but noble attempt to show the absurdity of racial prejudice. The Next Generation was equally blatant with their discussion of homosexuality in the episode "The Outcast". Star Wars is equally guilty of using thinly disguised human cultures and characteristics to create aliens. Someone mention Jar Jar Binks or Watto? *shiver* However, the universe of Star Wars is populated by much more varied creatures, while still usually humanoid, there are also many types of body structures.
One more way of creating aliens for mainstream is the chimera. A chimera is a invented animal made by combining pieces of existing animals. Acient mythology is rife with these, as is fantasy and very, very soft science fiction. Head of a tiger and body of a duck, tail of a monkey with arms of a shrimp. By cutting up and stitching together animals you can create any species imaginable. It is like having an infinite set of jigsaw pieces to stick together to creat a frankenstein's pet. Obviously, humans are always in there and mixed with other animals to creat non-humans. Angels, devils, centaur, minotaur, satyr, and many more are created this way. Completely biologically implausible, but fun nonetheless.
The increasingly widespread phenomena of proclaimed "abductees" who claim to have had contact with extraterrestrial on earth suffers from the same flaw. The "greys" which most people claim to see are merely warped humas with insect-like attributes. If aliens are out there it is almost certain that the will not look like us at all. While it is slightly possible that they may have four limbs and a head with eyes and mouth, the particular arrangement of those features will bear very, very little resemblance to that of humans. That is not to say it couldn't happen, it is just highly unlikely, and they are just as likely to look like any creature on earth.
These days, those responsible for Star Trek have the excuse that they are somewhat confined to the legacy of Rodenberry's original vision, to keep the universe somewhat coherent. That is not true for other TV series and films. The main reasons we see so many humanoid aliens is that the idea is ingrained in our culture, it is still easier, quicker and cheaper to use latex noses on actors and that a human actor is so much better at acting than a polygon model or motor-driven puppet. When all is said and done, as long as people can suspend their disbelief and enjoy the real point of the story - the struggle of hearts and the fight against evil - it is rather unimportant if the aliens are biologically plausible or not.
Ultimately, these methods of creating aliens by warping human features and characteristics and understandable when one considers that they are aimed at the widest possible market possible. Even my mum loves Star Trek and she wouldn't even know what a science fiction novel was! If the science fiction you are making is soft, with the intended audience ranging from housewives to physicists, then creating humanoids will always be good, as long as you can find original aspects to distort, or new animals to merge. There is more than one way of putting non-human humanoids into hard science fiction: genetic engineering, parallel universes (but not humanoid dinosaurs) and androids.
However, if your SF is hard and you need plausible aliens, then steer well clear of humanoids. Human form and behaviour comes from our own unique evolutionary and cultural history. Using human-inspired creatures allows for classical tales to be told once again in a science fiction or fantasy setting. On the other hand, using biologically plausible creatures allows for a whole new range of stories resulting from the interaction of humans with these aliens.

Religion

Before we begin, let me just say that this post will be discussing a very contentious topic: religion. It is not my intent to ridicule or belittle anyone's beliefs, but emotions run high regarding this issue. I believe it is a very important topic and relevant for the design of alien societies. I respect everyone's right to believe in whatever system they choose, and therefore ask that the same respect be offered towards my personal thoughts on the subject. I welcome any constructive, intelligent debates, and will ignore any rude name-calling.
Almost all human societies have developed religions in order to fill in the gaps of knowledge. I believe that there are two main reasons for developing a belief in "something higher". The first is that it is a simple way of explaining the unknown, and unknowns are certainly scary things. When asked any question to which there is no answer, "God wills it" is a very convenient answer, not only to hide the spiritual advisor's ignorance, but also to give comfort to those who need it. For example, it is much better to believe that a lost love one is in the arms of God, rather than simply decomposing in a burial mound. Also, the thought of death is the ultimate fear and having your soul go to paradise is much more preferable to the though of the lights simply going out. The second reason is that it is a way to control the population. On its own, a community with a shared belief system has a kind of self-organisation. People will be more incline to obey the law through fear of divine punishment and through a closer connection to fellow spirits, than would be possible in an aetheist society. On a more sinister note, I am sure everyone is aware of what happens when religious ideals are used for political gain. History is replete with examples of unimaginable atrocities carried out in the name of religion. An emotive example that leaps to mind is the Spanish Inquisition. *shudder* It can also be used for financial gain, something very evident from many of the many cults and evangelists of our time.
I often wonder why, in a world of so many religions, do people never ask the question "what makes my religion so special?". For example, even with Christianity, there are many factions, when fundamentally they all are supposed to believe in the same thing. What makes one interpretation right, and all the others wrong? One reason why religion is so powerful is that it is by its very nature, like a virus, more technically speaking, it is a powerful, viral meme. For example, if my religion says "people who do not subscribe to exactly the same religion will be forever tormented in hell", then I will do everything in my power to make sure all my loved ones believe in the same.
Religions also have a wide variety in what they believe. Some believe in one God, others many. Some worship powerful symbols like the sun, while others worship unusual deities, like feathered snakes, but in most, the deity is human in appearance. For example a caucasian man in a white beard and robe, sitting on a cloud judging us all. The following beautiful quote, which could not be more relevant for this post, puts this into perspective:
"The rash assertion that 'God made man in His own image' is ticking like a time bomb at the foundation of many faiths, and as the hierarchy of the universe is disclosed to us, we may have to recognize this chilling truth: if there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they cannot be very important gods." Arthur C. Clarke, 1965
If we ever find life out in the universe, especially if it is intelligent or even sentient, it would severely shake the beliefs of many. Or would it? When the theory of evolution was discovered over 150 years ago, one could have imagined the downfall of many faiths. Especially since evolution is logical, provable and observable. However, religion is a powerful thing and has endured, sometimes by blind defiance and other times by trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.
What do we get out of this. Well, any sentient species will probably have its history of religions. They may even believe that they were made in God's image. You can imagine the problems and conflicts accociated with such a first contact. Certainly they will think very differently from us and so perhaps they have no concept of religion and are intrigued or repulsed by the idea. This topic in itself leads to many possible interesting plot ideas, regarding the way we, and they, regard each other and our faiths. Having a plausible belief system for a culture is important in making it fully rounded. Having them worship something as simple as a rock, is no more strange than worshipping a snake or cow. A lot of plots even have aliens creating a religion out of the visit from human explorers. Kind of the opposite of "Chariots of the Gods" from Erich von Däniken.

After all, truth is stranger than fiction.

The Environment - part 1

Let's continue rephrasing "survival of the fittest" into something which gives a more accurate depiction of how evolution works. If we say "survival of the most suitable in a given environment", we have added two imortant aspects. The first "most suitable", which doesn't neccesarily mean the strongest, we have already looked at but the second "a given environment" needs a few words.

It is the environment which shapes all species and is not a simple static thing. The environment is everything in the nearby vicinity, which is comprised of a huge number of important factors: weather, plants, animals, geological features. Each one of these factors has many important facets. Weather is important, but so is how it changes. Temperature extremes thoughout the year, length and frequency of droughts, average rainfall/snowfall, etc. Vegetation is important not only as food for herbivores, but also as cover, camouflage, shelter, soil strengthening, and many more. Other animals not only include predators and prey, but also parasites, hosts, viruses, and members of the same species: mates to attract and rivals to outdo. Geological features include the general terrain, caves to live in, rivers to drink from, soft sand to lay eggs in, etc, etc. All these factors influence the direction of a species' evolution.

In addition, these factors are all changing. Weather and geological features are in constant flux, ice-ages come and go, rivers widen or dry up, land masses split and collide, volcanoes severely alter the environment. Plants and animals in the environment are also constantly evolving down their own paths, trying to exploit niches and move into new areas. This means that all species must continue to evolve, lest they be ousted by fitter species or succumb to the cruelty of the elements. Evolving alongside other species is called "co-evolution" as will be discussed in detail later.

By definition, all species are well-adapted to their environment, otherwise they simply wouldn't be around. Having said that, since environments are always changing, many species are in danger of becoming extinct, unless they can adapt quick enough or move to new areas. Many examples comes from the spread of humans. As fields and forests continue to transform into suburbs and industrial areas, many species die of while others thrive. Cockroaches, rats, crows and other scavengers seem to do well in wasteful human societies. Many others, however are unable to adapt to new environments and food sources and will inevitably die off.

When it comes to designing aliens, some thought about environment is essential. A fantastic example comes from my all-time favourite book, which I HIGHLY reccommend by the way: Expedition, by Wayne Douglas Barlowe. The creatures he depicts in the book have all evolved without eyes, rather using bat-like echo-location instead. This is on a planet with dim, but steady light. Using sound has many disadvantages over sight: it is active (meaning you must make noise betraying your presence), it has limited range and it is slower. The reason these animals do not have eyes is that in the early days of evolution on the planet the atmosphere was much different, with the entire planet cloaked in perpetual fog and the evolved solution became entrenched in the development of the species. It is this attention to detail and thoughtful explanation of the facts which I love.

In conclusion, in order to understand a species fully, one must look at the complex environment in which it is evolving, AND in which it has evolved. Not doing so will lead to creatures with no credibility, which will seem completely out of place.

Startrekisms - part 1

The earth is home to a vast and complex web of life filling almost every nook and cranny. From microscopic viruses to the awesome blue whale, life finds a niche and fills it. We find organisms of all sizes and in all places, even extreme conditions: Tube worms clustering around boiling-hot deep sea vents, flamingos thriving in toxic lakes, ants roaming around in scorching deserts, insects hibernating in ice blocks and spiders living at very high altitudes. If life can thrive somewhere you can bet, given enough time, it will. An interesting fact is that life began approximately three and a half billion years ago, which is around the same time that the earth had cooled sufficiently to allow life. This suggests that the spontaneous creation of life was relatively quick (in geological time) and straight forward. As Michael Crichton wrote in Jurassic Park, "life will find a way". Life wants to be created, it is inevitable, and once it has been there is no stopping it.

There are (at least) nine planets orbiting our sun. In addition, there are countless moons and other enormous celestial bodies zooming around it. Consider that there are approximately two hundred billion stars in our galaxy, there are perhaps over one hundred billion galaxies in the universe, and that the universe is around fifteen billion years old. That is a hell of a lot of time and space for life to emerge. The conclusion: life is almost certainly out there, somewhere.

The forces responsible for the emergence of life are still not well understood. Several theories such a chemical soups, mineral-laced clays, and hypercycles have been proposed, but there is still great contention between scientists. However, the force responsible for drawing life into the many varieties we see today is much better understood: Evolution. The theory of evolution was proposed over 150 years ago by the English naturalist Charles Darwin. Although there seem to be several weak points of the theory, it has stood the test of time and forms the basic theory of all life. Evolution does occur, we have even seen it in process. It is such a simple and powerful idea, but one that is often completely misunderstood by most people.

The reason for writing these articles is to share some knoｗledge and ideas about designing aliens, whether for science fiction, fantasy, roleplaying, art or fun. It is all to easy to do a "startrekism" and design an alien as a human with a funny nose and an extreme personality trait. However, if you want more scientifically-based, realistic aliens, then you need to give some thought to all aspects of the creature such as chemistry, social structure, evolutionary history, environment, biosphere, foodchain, sensory system, life-cycle and many more. At the very least, these articles will offer some "food for thought" and may serve as starting off points for further research related to the design of alien lifeforms. Hopefully, the insights contained within can help you transform your aliens in to much more rounded, believable creatures.

Using various gems of scientific knowlegde, and sometimes some plain old common sense, it is possible to design aliens to seem much more believable. For example, on a planet with much greater gravity, flight would become impossible, right? Actually, this is not the case. Stronger gravity means greater atmospheric pressure, which would make it easier for animals to balance their body densities with the surrounding air pressure, making them much more buoyant. In effect, making the dynamics of the atmosphere closer to that of water. If you didn't already know that you might be thinking "oh yeah, that's a good point, I never though of that". It is aspects like this that can make the difference between believable and silly.

All the tidbits and rules found in these examples are for thinking about aliens on a much deeper level and therefore making them more scienticially believable. First of all, since nobody know what is out there, and since scientific knowledge is often limited and subject to change, everything in these articles is to be taken with a pinch of salt. Use the information here if you want. Second, perhaps your audience does not want scientifically viable aliens. The above example about buoyancy on high gravity world may be useful if you are writing a book and can explain that to the reader. In a film or painting you don't have the luxury of being able to give too much scientific background, therefore relying on what the average viewer already knows. As another example, predators attacking prey is always slightly dangerous for the predator too, therefore they will only do it when they really have to, and once they have eaten they will be very uninterested in other prey. This would not make for an interesting story. Imagine if the creature in Ridley Scott's "Alien" killed and ate one of the crew and then went off to sleep in a quiet cupboard for a few weeks to digest.

That is not to say there is no place for realistic aliens. There are many great science fiction stories centered around aliens and their strange characteristics. In "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem, humans encounter something so alien that they have no way of comprehending it. The aliens in Niven and Pournelle's "The mote in God's eye" are asymetric creatures with a terrifying biological secret. "Lifeform" from Allan Dean Foster contains aliens with strange, believable abilities as does the 2001 series from Arthur C. Clarke.

A particularly frowned-upon way of writing science fiction is to take a well-known story and set it in space. There are numerous examples of "science fiction" stories which are blatant retellings of well-known classics. They are fairly easy to spot and sometimes highly successful. This is more "soft" science fiction. For example, a western in space, a romance in space, a swashbuckling adventure in space, etc. For this type of story, believable aliens simply get in the way of an enjoyable yarn. However, basing a story around a weird alien characteristic and how humans deal with it always leads to interesting areas which is always science fiction. This is the path to "hard" science fiction.

Misunderstandings regarding evolution

Following on from the previous topic of universals and parochials, another important distinction which needs to be made when discussing evolution (and any debate really) is that of general and specific. It may sound obvious but you would be surprised at how many arguments are caused by people with opinions at different levels. This is also where a lot of misunderstanding about evolution comes in. You could almost say that natural selection works on individuals and evolution works on a species as a whole. For example, someone might argue that the survival of the fittest theory is wrong since a strong individual might be killed by accident or simply doesn't get the chance to mate. This is too specific. Looking at the population as a whole, statistically, the fittest will survive.

Another problem comes from the term: survival of the fittest. It is the meaning of the word "fittest" that leads to misunderstanding. In normal daily life, "fit" usually means physically fit: stong, heallthy, atheletic, whereas in evolution, it means "most suitable". Often, people will look at specific examples in nature, and argue that it is not the strongest that are selected. We should say survival of the most suitable. A peackock with a ridiculously long tail may not be as fast or as agile as one with a short tail, but weighing up the danger of a long tail against the chance of attracting a mate, and we find that long-tailed individuals are "fitter" in general.

Many people believe evolution happens over millions of years and is therefore unobservable in one's lifetime, or indeed a civilisation's lifetime. This is not true. There are many examples of evolution being witnessed and tracked by biologists, from viruses and moths, to fish and dogs. We can also track evolutionary changes in the fossil records for many species.

One of the most annoying misunderstandings comes in the form of: "if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys around?" The key to this misuderstanding is the term "monkeys". We didn't evolve from monkeys, we evolved from a common ancestor with monkeys. It is just that we evolved more drastically, probably due to less hospitable or fluctuating environments. Imagine this: a species of primate live in a lush green forest. Then the forest (and primate population) gets split in half by an uncrossable river, and that one half turns onto barren plains while the other remains lush and green. The population half in the plains now have to evolve in response to new dangers, more limited resources and fierce competition while the other half can continue being perfectly adapted to their surrounding. This is how new species originate. And the reason for a lack of missing links? The evolution to adapt to the harsh new environment will be pretty quick, and since that half of the population is evolving together, there is no room or resources for part of that population to remain static. That is, unless the new species is split further, which is exactly what happens and is why we see so many species in the world.

Another problem phrase is: giraffes evolved long necks in order to reach tall trees. The problem here is the "in order to" part. What we should say is: giraffes evolved long necks in response to tall trees. While this difference may seem trivial and pedantic, it is an extremely important distinction in evolution. There is no higher intelligence guiding evolution, it has no goal or purpose. The giraffe population does not want long necks. It is simply that giraffes with slightly longer necks had, in general, more food and were therefore better fed and stronger, favoured by natural selection, and ultimately leading to more offspring with inherited long necks. The giraffes were competing not only against each other and other grazers, but presumably with the tree itself, which probably evolved taller in reponse to the evolution of the giraffe. If you still don't understand the distinction from my short explanation I suggest you go away and think about it a lot and do more reading, because it is the basis for understanding evolution.

We will evolve huge foreheads and lose our little fingers in the future. No, we won't! I will discuss the future of human evolution later.

Hypothetical Life Thought Process

I just thought I would say a few words regarding the process I use when thinking about alien life. I am certainly no biological or zoological expert but I have more than the average ammount of knowledge about evolution and the various life forms that we share this planet with. I use this information to project what has happened here, to what may have happened elsewhere.
There is a very important distinction, which needs to be made when categorising life: universals and parochials. I believe these terms originated from Dr. Jack Cohen, one of the most influential and successful proponents of xenobiology.

Simply put, a universal is a structure, device, behaviour or process which is so useful and achievable that it crops up again and again in nature. Examples include flight, sight, fur and parasitism. These are things we see over and over again in the animal kingdom, evolved completely independantly in numerous, unrelated species. Often, a given environment will force organisms to evolve similar strategies. The flight and feeding behaviour of a hummingbird is superficially very similar to that of some moths; completely unrelated species evolving along similar lines to exploit similar niches.

On the other hand, parochials are accidents, simply random structures which, for seemingly no reason have become entrenched in all descendents. There is no real evolutionary pressure to explain them and given a rerun of evolution, would be unlikely to come up again. For example, vertebrates have the usual five-digit plan. Even in animals where this is less obvious, like horses or whales, their evolutionary past reveals that they did once have the same five-digit plan as their distant fishy ancestors that once crawled laboriously out of the oceans. Why five digits? Why not four or six? Actually, all those hundreds of millions of years ago, there were numerous species of fish with varying numbers of digits. It is just that the tetrapods were the ones to survive and populate the land. Mostly parochials are no better than nusances, but ones so deep in the structure of the animals that it is now impossible to evolve away from. The fact that our foodways and airways cross, often leading to choking, has no evolutionary advantage and is simply the way things are by accident.

Why this is important when thinking about alien life, is that we should expect to see universals anywhere we find life, and we will be surprised when we find new parochials. If there really are lifeforms on other planets, and if they have evolved in similar environments to those found on earth, then we will find eyes, we will find parasites and we will find wings. It may sometimes be hard for us to recognise them for what they are but we can be sure they are there. What we will not find on other planets are races of creatures who look exactly like caucasian humans except for their pointed ears or ridged noses, speaking perfect American English.

If I ever see life from another planet in my lifetime (highly improbable), I will be just as interested in the similarites they have to life on earth, as I am in the differences which set them apart.

Insect DVD

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This is the first day of 2006 and I'd like to tell you what I recieved in the post. It was a belated Christmas package from my mum in England. It contain what I would have to say is my best Christmas present ever. A BBC DVD entitled "Life in the Undergrowth" from David Attenborough. It is a documentary about insects, showing some of the most remarkable from all around the world. Fan-bloody-tastic! I love insects and the DVD contains valuable and entertaining information about what they are, where they came from and many of the strange things that they do. It delves into topics such as evolution, flight, sociality, weapons, defence, mating and many more aspects which will be explored further in this blog. Also, I have to admit, David Attenborough is my all-time number one hero. I have such respect for him, not only in all he does and has done, but also the man himself.

Thanks mum, I couldn't have wished for a better present.

Welcome

This is the beginning of this blog and so I think a few words about the aims of it are in order. This place is simply somewhere where I can record my thoughts, however raw they may be, about life in general.

As a disclaimer, I'd like to admit right here and now that some of the facts contained herein will be dubious and unchecked, and that the opinions here are entirely my own and subject to change given fresh information or entirely new whims. I will be constantly editing these posts to make sure they are as tight and information/syntax error free as possible. This blog is not supposed to be taken seriously by anyone, it is more like interesting food-for-thought. I am not interested in arguments with creationists or nitpicking by biologist - although I welcome any corrections or insights anyone may have to offer.

I am in love with the concept of life, and the beautiful simplicity of the process of evolution. I hope I will be able to convey that love and provide somewhat interesting, informative and thought-provoking insights into the natural world around us, and also what might be "out there".

Thank you for your interest and patience.