In three podcasts at Vox:
How did life start on Earth? What was the series of events that led to birds, bugs, amoebas, you, and me?
That’s the subject of Origins, a three-episode series from Unexplainable — Vox’s podcast that explores big mysteries, unanswered questions, and all the things we learn by diving into the unknown. – Brian Resnick (March 1, 2023)
The three mysteries they offer are:
- Where did Earth’s water come from?
- How did life start in that water?
- What is life anyway?
About that last: Science writer Carl Zimmer offers “The problem is, for each definition of life, scientists can think of a confounding exception. Take, for instance, NASA’s definition of life: “Life is a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.” But that definition would exclude viruses, which are not “self-sustaining” and can only survive and replicate by infiltrating a host.”