The tree of alien life!

Paleontologist Peter Ward wants to trash the tree of life — at least the time-honored tree that we all learned about in biology class.

In his latest book, “Life as We Do Not Know It,” Ward notes that scientists are already fiddling with genetic code to create what you could arguably call alien organisms, and he proposes a grander tree — or a forest of trees — for those aliens as well as viruses, non-DNA life and silicon-carbon extraterrestrials.

"This sets the house up for admitting all these aliens," said Ward, a University of Washington professor who delves into issues surrounding ancient life as well as future life.



From the Cosmic Log, aliens are already on Earth. We just need to add viruses, the RNA world, synthetic organisms, and life elsewhere to the tree of life.