Living with the Stars

We are quite literally not who we were years, weeks, or even days before. The stuff that makes our body is being replaced all the time, from the chemicals in our cells to the very cells themselves. What lasts is not our literal substance but rather a pattern that is renewed with elements captured from the surrounding biosphere. The newly integrated material that replaced what was lost connects our body directly to animals and plants that contribute to our food and to the bacteria within us that help digest it. All of these depend on the energy of light released in the nuclear furnace deep inside the Sun combined with the carbon dioxide that cycles through the Earth's atmosphere, originating in volcanic eruptions and being released in the burning of fossil fuels made from beings in the distant past. Mixed in with that are radioactive atoms that are caused by stellar explosions across the Galaxy and from the decay of atoms deep inside the Earth. All that makes us, and all that exists around us, is tied to the stardust released in the death throes of ancient stars and ultimately to the formation of the universe itself.

Speaker: Dr. Karel Schrijver, Lockheed Martin