Draft post cleanup #13: Twisted tree of life award: MSNBC, Aliens and Photosynthesis

Yet another post in my “draft blog post cleanup” series.  Here is #13 from July 2010.

I wanted to give this article a “Twisted Tree of Life Award“:

How to find aliens: Follow the photosynthesis – Technology & science – Space – Space.com – msnbc.com

It is pretty painful to me.  Basically the people they are quoting argue that since “complex” life on Earth requires oxygen and since oxygen only comes from photosynthesis, therefore we should look for planets where photosynthesis is possible as the place where life is most likely to be interesting.  Uggh.  So many things in the article I did not like … but just not enough time I guess to bitch about it then.  I will leave it to readers to decide for themselves I guess …

Author: Jonathan Eisen

I am an evolutionary biologist and a Professor at U. C. Davis. (see my lab site here). My research focuses on the origin of novelty (how new processes and functions originate). To study this I focus on sequencing and analyzing genomes of organisms, especially microbes and using phylogenomic analysis View all posts by Jonathan Eisen