OK, I know it sounds ridiculous. But let's think about what life is. Living things have these qualities:

1  They react to their environment 
2  They consume substances to extract energy
3  They reproduce
4  They use respiration 
5  They emit waste

So think about a forest fire.

1 it reacts to its environment. It changes if the wind blows. It burns brighter or with different colours depending on where it is 

2 It consumes wood, leaves, plastic, animals, all kinds of things to use for energy

3 It reproduces. It starts small and spreads across a massive area

4 Fire exhibits respiration. It uses oxygen. It dies without it. 

5 It emits smoke as waste. It leaves behind ashes and charcoal as waste.

So... Next time you put out a fire, note that you're not putting it out... You're KILLING IT!

I was throwing out some old magazines today when I found a copy of New Scientist which had this interesting list. The magazine explains that "There is nothing more fascinating to most of us than ourselves so it is hardly surprising that we have expended large amounts of effort trying to get to the bottom of what it means to be human. What is surprising is that there are so many traits that remain enigmatic. These range from the sublime to the ridiculous".

They certainly do. Here's the top 10...

1 Blushing: Why do we turn red when we lie?

2 Laughter: Endorphins are released when we laugh which make us feel good, but we sometimes laugh at things which re not funny.

3 Kissing: One theory is that it is associated with memories of breastfeeding and that ancient humans weaned their children by feeding them from their mouths, which reinforced the link between sharing saliva and pleasure. (ewww)

4 Dreaming: The process of dreaming has been explained but why we see strange visions has yet to be properly explained.

5 Superstition: Evolution can partly explain why we develop some unusual but reassuring habits in ancient times. Religion seems to tap into this impulse.

6 Picking your nose: There is no practical reason to do this. But a quarter of teenagers do it, on average four times a day. Also people who drive their cars who think no one can see them. Hey - I can see you.

7 Adolescence: It seems humans are the only animals to experience unpredictable and irrational behaviour in teenage years. Perhaps it helps our brain reorganise itself before adulthood or allow experimentation in behaviour before the responsibility of later years.

8 Altruism: giving things away with no certain return is odd behaviour in evolutionary terms although other animals do this apart from humans. It may help with group bonding or simply give pleasure.

9 Art: Painting, dancing, sculpture, music could be the human equivalent of a peacock's tail in showing what a good potential mate someone is. Or, it could also be a tool for spreading knowledge or sharing experience.

10 Body hair: Humans have fine hairs on their bodies and thick hair on their genitals and armpits - which is the opposite of what occurs in primates, our closest animal relatives.

I've just found out Morgan Freeman is an atheist. This is a surprise. When I watched Bruce Almighty I thought he was very convincing in the role of God. Even his voice was perfect.

Not sure I will be able to watch that movie again.

I've been learning about synthetic biology. I've heard of it but had no idea how far it had gone.

Scientists can now design and build biological organisms that do not already exist in nature. That's quite amazing.

Even more amazing, scientists (and students) can create and share "bio-bricks" which are DNA sequences that perform a specific function. You can download these just like open source software. For example, you could download a biobrick which is the DNA sequence that makes a jellyfish glow in the dark and introduce that into the DNA of a mouse to make a luminous mouse. 

Ok that's not a very practical thing to do.  Here's a better example. Spider web silk is incredibly strong - if we had enough we could make fabrics stronger than anything man made. You could make bullet proof skin. So... 

- Isolate the spider gene that makes the web
- introduce that gene into a goat embryo 
- breed "spider goats". They look just like any normal goat by the way except...
- when you milk the goat, the milk contains the spider web protein.
- extract the protein in the lab and you can literally pull out as many miles of spider web silk as you want on to reels.

This isn't fantasy - this is actually happening on a commercial scale at Utah State university. 

Another example is the production of diesel from genetically modified yeast. You don't have to wait millions of years for crude oil to be created underground. You can make diesel in a lab, from yeast. And it's being done now.

Synthetic biology is now so widespread it's a hobby for some people - designing and modifying DNA sequences as biobricks on their home computers and sharing them online.

The moral questions are interesting...

About 3 months ago I started reading "The Road To Reality - A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe" by Roger Penrose. I'm only halfway through - it's 1049 pages and it's hard going.

His approach is to show how the physics that defines our universe falls out of the underlying mathematics. And so he starts with Pythagorus and builds on that to derive all of the mathematics needed for quantum physics, space-time, and the laws of the universe. I can't confirm this as I'm still wading through fibre bundles and gauge connections (page 329).

He does however reveal a beautiful aspect of our universe whereby mathematics can lead to new discoveries - even new universes. It's quite a simple idea - you take something that is considered to be a fundamental truth and then analyse what happens if it's not true.

Take parallel lines which as we learn at school, never meet. What if they did? Well, that leads to non-Euclidean geometry. The impact of this discovery was sensational - it went way beyond mathematics and science.

This idea has been repeated many times. What if we assume (-1) has a square root? What if we can divide by zero? What if we assume more than three physical dimensions? And so on. Each one leading to a new aspect of reality. Whatever that is.

The physicist Max Tegmark has suggested that reality IS mathematics. Mathematics is all that exists. Could be...

Arranged to meet a colleague for lunch at St Paul's Cathedral - surely one of the most magnificent buildings in the world. They have a cafe in the crypt which does a very nice lunch of soup and sandwiches.

There is now a small encampment (known as "tent city") outside the cathedral where anti-globalisation protestors have been living for several months. In fact they are anti lots of things... religious fundamentalism, capitalism, war, that kind of thing.

When they first arrived there were thousands of them. The cathedral was closed for the first time ever, and the Dean had to resign. He'd seen the protestors as some kind of threat but ironically, they were protesting - peacefully - about many of the same things that Jesus spoke against. He should have spoken to them, made some arrangements. I guess the Dean lost his job for not having read the bible properly.

Anyhoo.... I had a look around tent city - they have a tent selling books and magazines - they call it Tent City University. They have all the facilities they need to stay for a long time, including a block of toilets. I chatted to some of the occupants and very pleasant they were too. But they were blocking the entrance to the cafe and I wasn't afraid to tell them.

The only way in was through the main entrance which usually means paying a hefty visitor's fee. But when I said I wanted the cafe I was escorted through various rope barriers and past queues of people as if I was a visiting dignitary, then allowed to head off on my own. Which means I had full access to the cathedral for nothing. Surprised they haven't spotted this loophole.

Eventually found my way to the cafe, where my colleague was waiting, having had a similar experience. But we had a delicious lunch, surrounded by the dead bodies of some of England's greatest leaders and thinkers. (Suitably entombed of course)

And the soup was delicious. So if you're ever in London - check it out.

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't seen the Thor movie yet - don't read any further!

Actually it's Monday. Which probably is derived from "moon's day" but maybe not. I can't be bothered to google it. Funny how most of the days of the week are named after gods... Tiu; Wodan; Thor; Friya...

Anyway... I picked up my grandson from school today and noticed how smart he was. His shows trousers and coat all looked clean and new. A sharp haircut. I'm sure when I was 4 years old I would be muddy and scruffy by the end of the school day.

We arrived at my house after a quick stop to buy some fruit pastilles and sat down to do some reading practice but that didn't last long, so we watched the Thor movie on DVD. Well not all of it - I skipped the boring bits so we watched the whole movie in 30 minutes. We cheered as Thor demolished the ice giants with his mighty hammer Mjolnir (try explaining how to spell that word to a 4 year old), then we almost shed a year when Thor's dad (Odin aka Wodan maybe?) shouted at him for starting a fight (but as I explained his dad was right) and we were most upset when Thor was banished to Earth with no superpowers as punishment. (Or the cosmic naughty step as I explained).

We laughed as human Thor came to terms with his limitations, scoffed pancakes in one mouthful at the diner, we were a bit embarrassed when he kissed a girl (ewww), we were angry at Loki for telling Thor his dad was dead, we couldn't believe it when Loki's Giant robot kills Thor. WHAT?!?!? How can a God be dead?!??? But imagine our joy when Mjolnir senses Thor's predicament and flies into Thor's hand and Thor is resurrected! Yay! He then goes on to deal with Loki, save the ice giants from annihilation, proves he is wise after all, and joins his dad in the heavenly realm of Asgard where they become friends again.

Sadly (for me) my daughter arrived at this point to collect my grandson so we didn't have time to play hot wheels. That will have to wait until Saturn's day.