Monthly Archives: May 2014

Man vs. X … The language of literature


Grant Snider has come up with another great comic summary of life. This time his attention is turned to literature and the concept of conflict within it at different stages of Western culture. Check out more of his work here.

The language of life

Life used to have four molecules known as G, T, C and A.

Readers, now meet X and Y.

Scientists have successfully created DNA which can carry the extra molecules and replicate itself. In other words the language of life has just gotten more complicated unnecessarily.

Does life really need the extra pair of molecules? We have done well, without exaggeration, for billions of years with only four molecules. So why add extra. It’s rather like saying let’s add a new letter to the English alphabet. Why try to do so when twenty-six letters have been sufficient for this long.

Nonetheless this shows us that life and language have no limits, and that both make do with the material at hand to perform what is necessary.