I think if we will be looking for life in earth-like planets, we must be sure of the origins of life on our earth, so that we can track its signs on other earth-like planets. However, if we’re looking for different forms of life in completely different planets that are nothing like earth, the knowledge of origins of life on earth won’t make a huge difference.

I think searching for life only on super-earths is for sure limiting. If we want to broaden the definition of life and find extraordinary living, we need to ignore our perception of “life”. Searching super-earths would mean we are trying to find life similar to ours and that’s why we are searching for places where our perception of life is most likely to occur. In order to really broaden the definition of life, we may as well look for it in other planets that are nothing like earth, even though we may not find “life” of our definition, we may still find some living that have unusual adaptations for the circumstances of their own planets.

We could try to find or create the catalyst that breaks down petroleum according to the concept of directed evolution and use it in order to break down the petroleum in the contaminated soil.

I think most of the energy is used for digestion, cellular activity and muscle movement, while a part of it is released as heat.