Articles

Each article starts from what science knows today, says where it stops, and then presents, as a hypothesis, the reading proposed in Lux Lucis.

• How did life begin on Earth? What we know and what we still don't

  From the Miller experiment to the RNA world: science's hypotheses, their limits, and a different way of asking the question.

• LUCA, the last common ancestor of all living things

  All living things descend from a single ancestor that lived about 4.2 billion years ago. How we know, and what we still don't know.

• Why did life arise only once?

  On a planet full of suitable environments, a single family of living things. Science's explanations and the idea of the “closing window.”

• The Fermi paradox explained simply: where is everybody?

  Billions of stars and planets, and not one signal. Enrico Fermi's question, the proposed answers and the idea of a galaxy that is alive but almost mute.

• The Great Filter: why the universe is silent

  Is there an almost impossible step between inert matter and a galactic civilization? Where it might lie, and why the answer matters.

• The genetic code is universal: why is it the same for everyone?

  Bacteria, plants and people read DNA with the same dictionary. How it was deciphered, and why it is so well built.

• Photosynthesis: does a plant “read” light?

  For a plant, light is not only energy: it is information about where to grow, who is nearby and what season it is.

• Are we really made of stardust?

  The carbon, oxygen and iron in our bodies were born in stars. How much of it is true, and what doesn't quite add up in the famous phrase.

• The scientific revolutions born from a different question

  Copernicus, Darwin, Wegener: discoveries born not from new data, but from a different question. And the limit of that lesson.

• Jung's synchronicity: the scarab at the window

  Coincidences linked by meaning, not by a cause. The story of the scarab, psychology's explanations and a different reading.

• Do trees talk to each other? The Wood Wide Web

  Fungi linking roots and chemical signals in the air: what is solid, what is overstated, and the forest as an image of a network.

• Can science and faith get along?

  Conflict, separation, dialogue or integration: the real history of the relationship between science and faith, and a proposal for convergence.

• What happens after death? What science says

  Near-death experiences, the dying brain, and what science cannot say. A subject approached gently.