 So sometimes when we think about life, we may think in terms of plants in our office living or dying, but sometimes life is a controversial topic. If you think about the abortion issue that we hear about in society so much today, when does life start? Is the sperm alive as it swims toward the egg? Well certainly, but is the sperm its own unique living entity? If so, and once you spermicide, does that make them a mass murderer? I don't think so. But certainly at the point of conception something new has happened and some people would argue that at that point you have a unique living individual and some people argue that it takes two months or the first trimester or the second trimester. What is the point? Well, that's something that science can't particularly answer, but it's certainly something that science can give everyone insight to and that's one of the things that we want to think about today. Consider the other spectrum of life. Certainly everyone has probably experienced a death and death isn't a pleasant thing. I remember my first experience with death. I was a seven-year-old probably and was walking across the street from the baseball field where I'd been playing baseball and I looked down the road and saw this little puppy coming across the road. At the same time a pickup truck was barreling down the road and it was almost like a premonition. I could see it coming and of course the truck ran over the dog and I ran up as a seven-year-old and I was just really taken aback by the scene that was in front of me. I don't think I'd ever experienced death so shockingly as I did that day. Certainly dogs are things to think about, but think about human lives. Lots of us will have our pets euthanized when they get so ill or so old or so decrepit that they can't continue to lead a normal life, but is it okay to euthanize humans? Certainly today society says no, but there have been doctors that think it's okay and think assisted suicide for example is something that we should offer to everyone. So what is life? What are the answers? Is there a right or wrong? Science doesn't really have a place answering what's right and what's wrong, but what science can do is give us some things to think about and so as you study biology and you learn more and more about science, I encourage you to understand that scientists aren't out to say this is the correct thing to think morally or we're not out to tell someone the right moral choice or religious choice, but it is important for folks to have a good understanding and that's what we're after. So as you think about life, consider life, is it a controversial topic or is it something that's just cut and stung? I think you'll find it's pretty controversial at times.