Astrobiologists searching for life in the universe, believe that Darwin's vision of natural selection promises to profoundly alter and expand the notion of life and its origins.

John Baross, an oceanographer and astrobiologist from the University of Washington, Seattle, will explore this topic on Monday, Nov. 2, at 7 p.m. PST at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View, Calif. Baross will reflect on Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and possible evolutionary adaptations on other planetary bodies, in a lecture titled "Evolution of Astrobiology: Searching for Life in the Universe - A New Darwinian Voyage." Admission is free.
Sponsors of the lecture include the NASA Astrobiology Institute at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and Lockheed Martin Corporation, Sunnyvale. Calif. This is the last in a series of Ames-hosted public lectures centered on the concept of evolution. In honor of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species," Ames is looking at the evolution of science and technology, particularly as it contributes to the NASA mission.

For more information, visit: http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/