Posthuman Blues

Are Nanobacteria Making Us Ill?

"At the heart of the debate is the question of whether nanobacteria could actually be a new form of life. To this day, critics argue that a particle just 20 to 200 nanometers in diameter can't possibly harbor the components necessary to sustain life. The particles are also incredibly resistant to heat and other methods that would normally kill bacteria, which makes some scientists wonder if they might be an unusual form of crystal rather than organisms."

Just as the nature of self-awareness is elusive, the very definition of "alive" is far from established. When we find life on Mars will we recognize it as such?