East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres by Andrew Q Lam

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 Quick, what comes after the age of globalization? If you're stumped, not too worry. Most people are. In fact, there's no age yet being coined or agreed upon.

So here's something I came up with: cosmozation. The word doesn't exist in the dictionary, but then 25 years or so ago neither did globalization. Soon, however, Webster will have to add "cosmozation," or something like it, in order to address man's intensifying relationship with the cosmos.

This artist rendition provided by NASA shows the Kepler space telescope, which was designed to search for Earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy.

Think about it: We are looking for planets like ours in the Milky Way via the new Kepler telescope. and we are finding some serious possibilities. While astronomer Dimitar Sasselov recently made a mistake identifying some of those 140 possibilities as "Earthlike," instead of Earth-sized, the excitement of potential discoveries lit up the Internet. Despite the fuzzy data, the potential for finding millions more remains great.

Indeed, a radical shift in human psyche regarding our relationship with the rest of universe is taking place. Not so long ago, until Copernicus came along, we assumed our world was the universe's center -- and, for that matter, flat -- and that the sun orbited Earth. Last century we held on to the notion that our solar system was unique. Scientists just a generation ago assumed, too, that conditions on Earth -- a protective atmosphere, ample water and volcanic activity -- made it the only planet that could possibly support life. 

Read the rest at AOL News.

Opinion: The Universe Is Shrinking -- Call It Cosmozation

Andrew Q. Lam is an editor for New America Media and the author of two books: Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora and East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres. 

By the way, Gina Misiroglu of Red Room put me in touch with the AOL people, which is one of the great ways in which she's bringing traffic to Red Room and getting attention for Red Room's authors.