The University of Toledo
ASTR2320: Life in the Universe
Term Paper
Possible topics:
- Is there life elsewhere -- Mars, Europa, Titan, Beyond the Solar
System?
- Is life carbon-based?
- Is there intelligent life elsewhere and is there a way to search
for it?
- Have we been visited?
- How should we deal with the discovery of life elsewhere?
- What caused extinctions on Earth?
- How did life originate on Earth?
- How does intelligence evolve?
Useful Resources
1) Magazines:
2) Books:
- Sagan, The Dragons of Eden
- Feinberg and Shapiro, Life Beyond Earth
- Schneider and Londer, The Coevolution of Climate & Life
- Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation
- Stanley, The New Evolutionary Timetable
- Attenbourough, Life of Earth
- Finney and Jones, Interstellar Migration and Human Experience
- McDonough, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
- Shapiro, Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth
- Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth
- Gould, A Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
- Trinkaus and Shipman, The Neandertals
- Officer and Page, The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy
- Ward and Brownlee, Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe
- Ward and Brownlee, The Life and Death of Planet Earth
- Benton, When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time
3) Web sites:
