Some time ago, in fact many years ago SETI ( Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence ) had a great idea. Seti searches with sensitive telescopes the universe for signals that could be coming from extraterrestrial intelligence. With this search al lot of data is gathered. I mean an lot of data. And that all has to be checked. Of course that can be checked by computers but still, that takes so much time. So the idea was to let it be checked by more computers, by many more computers. A simple and briljant idea. So they asked the public to help. With personal computers all over the world data could be checked. I loved the idea so I volunteerd and received the needed software and could download the data files. My personal computer checked the data at night when I was sleeping and I installed an alarm sound for when something interesting was found. After a few days or should I say nights I turned that off for obvious reasons. This way I and many others around the world participated in the SETI search. 
For more information about SETI; the research, the scientists and events check out the site at www.seti.org 

Bringing back the mammoth….

There was an idea, a plan to bring back the mammoth. But why? Why should we want to..? And it is impossible. The moment an organisme dies de dna decays. So we will never have the full dna string of a mammoth. If such an animal gets born using an elephant then it will be a hybrid, part mammoth, part elephant with no habitat to live in. Not very ethical if you ask me. And this project would take millions of dollars. We better use this money to help survive species that are on the brink of extinction. The past is the past, we cannot bring back species that are extinct.

I follow live events online in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics and astrobiology. During an event of the Oxford University Space and Astronomy Society, astrophysicist Steven Balbus said the following that triggered me enormously “do the work that is absolutely fascinating to you”. He has an important point there. Do what fascinates you. Do where your passion lies. Especially in these mentally tough times, it is so extremely important that you do what makes sense to you, that you have a sense of purpose. So it is less important that you do something that you have become good at by doing it for years on end. It is more important to discover what really fascinates you. And it is not that difficult. It is not what others think you should do. This comes entirely from within yourself. What gives you pleasure, meaning, what fascinates you, where does your passion lie? It is fun to play around with these questions and also to look back at the time when you were young. Where was that fascination then?

I myself am fascinated with life, the universe, our planet Earth with the complex systems we are part of.