Life on Earth May Owe Its Existence to Black Holes
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The behavior of black holes in the universe could very well be connected to the origins of life. It sounds outrageous, but not when you look carefully at the chain of phenomena that we think go into making stars, planets and living things.
A spider scuttles across the wall. A flower blossom unfurls its petals. A dog idly barks at something real or imagined, and deep in the ocean a school of fish darts and swoops around a cloud of krill. Something slimy grows on the underside of a muddy rock while, together with the 100 trillion bacteria in our guts, we sit quietly, electrical pulses zipping around our brains. This is life.