Water - H20

'Miniature' by George Roberts 2014  (digital media)

The search for extraterrestrial life continues unabated.  On earth, life proliferates almost everywhere we look. The fearsome beasts in this digital painting were all visible through my microscope, living their relatively short lives in a single drop of  stream water taken from 'Fisher's Row'.

"Are we alone in the Universe"?  Not likely, but knowing where and how we should look are separate and intriguing questions.

Water exists in vast quantities both in the solar system and deep space. If this much life can thrive in such a small droplet of magical H20 how many life forms could exist in a subterranean sea on  Saturn's Moon Enceladus?
  
Our curiosity drives our species to find stuff out and this and the increasing complexity of our discoveries has led to increasing specialisation.  Science, Technology and Art have become separated if not divorced, leaving the ground once trod by Leonardo to become the realm of  'Crackpots, evangelists and bullshitters'.

On a dark and stormy night, I like to consider myself to be the last of the Victorian clergymen dabbling in the wonders of the natural sciences, looking through my telescope, peering through my microscope,doing difficult sums, painting pictures and collecting my fossils. In reality, I'm probably at best, a crackpot with too much time on my hands and an indulgent wife!

A real scientist would be able to name the creatures in the painting.  So I've named the worm in the middle Charlie!