What kind of hybrid do you get when you plant seeds like philosophy, pop culture, scientific facts and theory and designers who can deliver a punch with delicacy or dynamism?

That would be Seed magazine, which in its latest issue tackles a subject that everyone from Aristotle to Monty Python has taken on: "The Meaning of Life." They talk to scientists who determine that the definition of "definition" is inadequate to define life.

"It is maybe not so useful to focus on a definition of life as to focus on milestones," one scientist concludes. "Whether something is alive or not is more a matter of degrees." And don't get these guys started on the questions of whether life is determined by DNA alone: "How are we going to discuss it if you believe the definition of life has to do with DNA and I think it has to do with dynamic systems?"

It's not all a matter of life and death. Take "Rock, Paper, Scissors x 10(squared)," a sun-shaped chart, with words and numbers radiating outward, created by Connecticut graphic artist David C. Lovelace. It took a year to create and shows 101 possible "throws" resulting in more than 5,000 outcomes with a less than 1 percent chance of a tie. On the same page, there's a story about a soil mite that evolved from propagating through sexual reproduction to parthenogenesis (virgin birth) back to sexual reproduction. The brief is titled "Sexual Dominance."

There's no clash of science and culture in Seed, but rather a mingling of minds to form a smart conversation klatch.

-- Sharon Eberson, Post-Gazette entertainment editor