Are We Alone for 11/23/09 - Carbon Your Enthusiasm

Are We Alone - Carbon Your Enthusiasm

Bond it to oxygen and it’s the scourge of climate change. But earthly life wouldn’t be possible without carbon, and maybe that’s true for alien life, too.

And carbon has other exciting forms: tiny diamonds may be evidence of a catastrophic comet impact 13,000 years ago. And, chalky carbonates may point to a once-habitable Mars.

So get cozy with carbon. Find out if you could swap it for silicon in DNA. Plus, the conundrum of calculating a carbon footprint.

Guests

• Allen West – Retired Geophysicist
• Bethany Ehlmann – Geologist, Brown Unviversity
• Michael Mumma – Planetary scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• John Murlis – Chief Scientific Advisor to the Carbon Neutral Company in the U.K.
• Steven Benner – Molecular Biologist, Founder of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Are We A Blog?, the companion blog to the radio show.