SONG!: "The Unbroken Thread" by Symphony of Science

LYRICS

(Carl Sagan's lyrics written by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan and Steven Soter)


[David Attenborough]
All life is related
And it enables us to construct with confidence
The complex tree that represents the history of life

Our planet, the Earth, is as far as we know
Unique in the universe; it contains life
Here plants and animals proliferate in such numbers
That we still have not even named all the different species

Darwin's great insight revolutionized the way in which we see the world
We now understand why there are so many different species

[Carl Sagan]
Every cell is a triumph of natural selection
And we're made of trillions of cells (Within us is a little universe)
Those are some of the things that molecules do
Given four billions years of evolution (We are, each of us, a multitude)

Now how did the molecules of life arise?

[Attenborough]
It began in the sea
Some 3 thousand million years ago
Complex chemical molecules began to clump together

These were the "seeds"
From which the tree of life developed
They were able to split, replicating themselves
As bacteria do

[Sagan]
The secrets of evolution
Are time and death
There's an unbroken thread that stretches
From those first cells to us

(refrain)

[Jane Goodall]
There isn't a sharp line dividing humans
from the rest of the animal kingdom
It's a very wuzzie line

It's a very wuzzie line,
and it's getting wuzzier
All the time

We find animals doing things that we,
In our arrogance,
Used to think was "just human"

(refrain)

[Attenborough]
Its continued survival now rests in our hands

Science in the News

This week's issue of Scholastic News is packed full of science! First we learned about the Kepler Telescope, which is searching for Earth-like planets that might have liquid water. Why do scientists care that the water is in liquid form?

Check out these NASA videos about the Kepler mission (the first one is much shorter than the other)...





We also saw a picture of a deep-sea fish that seems alien to us because its so strange. You can actually see through its head! And it can too!-- because its eyes are on the inside. Its transparent (see-through) forehead acts like the canopy of a jet or the windshield of a car, protecting its tubular eyes. Pretty nuts!



Finally, last week we saw that the cover of the Washington Post had a picture of a new arrival on the front page... Here's some video of those precious little guys: