Asking a biologist to define 'life' is a bit like looking-up the word 'definition' in a dictionary — it's as if you're questioning their very existence. Biologists like myself don't agree on what life ...

Scientists have debated the definition of life for decades, but they still lack a consensus on the answer. Experts believe that "edge cases" make life difficult to define and blur boundaries across ...

To successfully look for life beyond our own solar system, astrobiologists desperately need a viable definition of life. Even after a century or so of debate, they lack a viable universal definition ...

People often feel that they can intuitively recognize whether something is alive, but nature is filled with entities that flout easy categorization as life or non-life — and the challenge may ...

Definitions of "life" are a dime a dozen. In a paper published back in 2011, University of Haifa biophysicist Edward Trifonov documented 123 of them. But which one is best? Trifonov decided to seek ...

There’s no shortage of tips about what brings happiness, but what gives your life meaning? “Meaning in life” is one of those things everybody insists is vitally important — yet nobody tells you what ...

The following is a summary of the epilogue in my book, The Wise Guy and the Fool. What is the meaning of life? People love this question, and they love to ask it of me when they find out that I am a ...

What provides you meaning in life? Most Americans mention family (69 percent), according to recently published polling and analysis by the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center. Also mentioned ...

I struggled with this question throughout my teenage years and young adulthood. My parents tried to convey their meaning of life to me when I was a teenager. Yet my contrarian streak prevented me from ...

I struggled with this question throughout my teenage years and young adulthood. My parents tried to convey their meaning of life to me when I was a teenager. Yet my contrarian streak prevented me from ...