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.

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.