TO: NAI Newsletter distribution list
FROM: George Cody (NAI CIW team) and Douglas Whittet (NAI RPI team)
SUBJECT: Announcement and invitation to attend NAI "Workshop Without Walls": The Organic Continuum from the ISM to the Early Solar System

DATES: March 11-12, 2010

Workshop Website: http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/2010vcworkshop

A two-day workshop using NAI remote communications tools will be held on March 11 and 12, 2010 to present topics spanning the cosmic evolution of organic complexity, from small molecule formation in interstellar clouds to organic synthesis and inventories in protoplanetary disks, the solar nebula, and primitive bodies such as comets and asteroids in our solar system.

Workshop topic areas include

* Interstellar Dust and the Organic Inventory of Protostellar Envelopes
* Organic Astrochemistry of Protoplanetary Disks
* Laboratory Studies of analog ISM and outer Solar System Materials
* Organics and Volatiles in Comets
* Organic matter in Interplanetary Dust particles.
* The Organic Inventory in Asteroids and Primitive Meteorites

This workshop is also a test of how to best use the advanced virtual communications capabilities of NAI to initiate greater cross-team awareness and dialog on a focused research area well represented across the NAI. What we learn from this will inform the greater NAI community.  

The workshop is open to all and will be accessible via internet browser- no special software or equipment is required. To receive connection details, please register on the NAI website: http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/2010vcworkshop

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

30 January - 4 February 2011 at the Ventura Beach Marriott Hotel, Ventura, CA

Microbial Ecology in the Early Fossil Record of Earth and Modern Analogues

Convenors: Nora Noffke & John Stolz

This GRC will discuss the latest research highlights in geobiology and will invite exciting case studies that demonstrate the potential of this interdisciplinary research field. The aim is to involve geoscientists as well as bioscientists into this discussion and to initiate collaboration between the disciplines. Geobiology involves the study of both modern and ancient environments and life therein. It is not only relevant to the appearance and evolution of life and habitats on Earth, but has implications for the detection of life on other planetary systems. The main themes of this conference are: i) Biofilms and microbial mats; ii) Biologically controlled sedimentary processes in modern environments; iii) Products of biologically controlled sedimentary processes in fossil environments: biogenic sedimentary structures; (iv) The geobiological approach for the search for life on other planets; and (v) Perspectives and outlook.

For more information: http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2011&program=geobiology

Source: NAI newsletter

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new paper in Science from NAI's Arizona State University team indicates that a trusted equation for calculating the age of the solar system may need rewriting. The team's measurements show that one of the equation's assumptions -- that certain kinds of uranium always appear in the same relative quantities in meteorites -- is wrong.

The differences in the quantities of uranium could mean that current estimates of the age of the solar system overshoot that age by 1 million years or more. Historical estimates place the age at about 4.5 billion years--a number that is not precise enough to show a difference of one million--but more finely honed recent calculations place the age at more like 4.5672 billion years. One million years is still an eyeblink at this scale, representing the difference between 4.566 and 4.567, but this difference is important in understanding the infant solar system. [Source NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NASA astrobiologists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of RNA, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidines exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life. The study appears in the September issue of Astrobiology.

"We have demonstrated for the first time that we can make uracil, a component of RNA, non-biologically in a laboratory under conditions found in space," said Michel Nuevo, research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center. "We are showing that these laboratory processes, which simulate occurrences in outer space, can make a fundamental building block used by living organisms on Earth."

[Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 5:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Loren Williams, "Where Did Protein Come From?"

Date/Time: Tuesday December 8, 2009 2:30PM Pacific

Speaker: Loren Williams (Georgia Institute of Technology)

Abstract: Ribosomes are RNA-based macromolecular machines responsible for the synthesis of all proteins in all living organisms. Ribosomes are the most ancient of life's macromolecules and are our most direct link to the deep evolutionary past, beyond the base of the phyologenetic tree. The recent availability of high resolution 3D structures of ribosomes provides us with new methods of detection and inference. We will discuss methods for resurrection and biochemical characterization of aboriginal ribosomes.

For more information and participation instructions: http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/seminars/detail/166

[Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 3:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Appearing in the Nov. 27, 2009, issue (Vol. 284, No. 48) of JBC: A key question in the origin of biological molecules like RNA and DNA is how they first came together billions of years ago from simple precursors. Now, in a study appearing in this week's JBC, researchers in Italy have reconstructed one of the earliest evolutionary steps yet: generating long chains of RNA from individual subunits using nothing but warm water.

Many researchers believe that RNA was one of the first biological molecules present, before DNA and proteins; however, there has been little success in recreating the formation on RNA from simple "prebiotic" molecules that likely were present on primordial earth billions of years ago.
Now, Ernesto Di Mauro and colleagues found that ancient molecules called cyclic nucleotides can merge together in water and form polymers over 100 nucleotides long in water ranging from 40-90 *C -similar to water temperatures on ancient Earth.

Continue reading "Just like old times: Generating RNA molecules in water" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Members of NAI's team at Georgia Tech have a new paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution describing an analysis of ribosomal structure and sequence. Their approach chronicles the ribosome's evolution, effectively interpreting the ribosome as a fossil. Using the highest resolution structures available, of two species that represent disparate regions of the evolutionary tree, they have sectioned the large subunit of each ribosome into concentric shells, like an onion, using the site of peptidyl transfer as the origin. Their results suggest that the structure and interactions of both RNA and protein can be described as changing, in an observable manner, over evolutionary time. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is widely accepted that around 2.4 billion years ago, the Earth's atmosphere underwent a dramatic change when oxygen levels rose sharply. Called the "Great Oxidation Event" (GOE), the oxygen spike marks an important milestone in Earth's history, the transformation from an oxygen-poor atmosphere to an oxygen-rich one paving the way for complex life to develop on the planet.

Two questions that remain unresolved in studies of the early Earth are when oxygen production via photosynthesis got started and when it began to alter the chemistry of Earth's ocean and atmosphere.

Continue reading "Oxygen Production in Earth's Early Oceans Predates the Great Oxidation Event" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Date/Time: Monday, November 30, 2009 11:00AM Pacific Speaker: Andrew Pohorille (NASA Ames Research Center)

Abstract: "Follow the water" is the canonical strategy in searching for life in the universe. Conventionally, discussion of this topic is focused on the ability of a solvent to support organic chemistry sufficiently rich to seed life. Although this is a necessary condition for the emergence of life it is far from being sufficient. Perhaps more importantly, solvent must promote self-organization of organic matter into functional structures capable of responding to environmental changes. In biology, they are mostly based on non-covalent interactions (interactions that do not involve making or breaking chemical bonds), strength of which must be properly tuned. If non-covalent interactions were too weak, the system would exhibit undesired, uncontrolled response to natural fluctuations of physical and chemical parameters. If they were too strong kinetics of biological processes would be slow and energetics costly.

Continue reading "NAI Director's Seminar: Andrew Pohorille, "Is Water Necessary for Life?"" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This new book, edited by Constance M. Bertka is now available. From the publisher: Where did we come from? Are we alone? Where are we going? These are the questions that define the field of astrobiology. New discoveries about life on Earth, the increasing numbers of extrasolar planets being identified, and the technologies being developed to locate and characterize Earth-like planets around other stars are continually challenging our views of nature and our connection to the rest of the universe. In this book, philosophers, historians, ethicists, and theologians provide the perspectives of their fields on the research and discoveries of astrobiology. A valuable resource for graduate students and researchers, the book provides an introduction to astrobiology, and explores subjects such as the implications of current origin of life research, the possible discovery of extraterrestrial microbial life, and the possibility of altering the environment of Mars.

* An introduction to astrobiology exploring the origin of life, the extent of life, and the possibility of life on Mars * Provides philosophical, historical, ethical and theological perspectives on astrobiology * No prior knowledge of the subject is needed as each chapter has been written to be understood by readers new to the field

For more information: http://www.cup.es/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521863636 [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Humans might not be walking on Earth today if not for the ancient fusing of two microscopic, single-celled organisms called prokaryotes, NASA-funded research has found.

By comparing proteins present in more than 3000 different prokaryotes - a type of single-celled organism without a nucleus - molecular biologist James A. Lake from the University of California at Los Angeles' Center for Astrobiology showed that two major classes of relatively simple microbes fused together more than 2.5 billion years ago. Lake's research reveals a new pathway for the evolution of life on Earth. These insights are published in the Aug. 20 online edition of the journal Nature.

This endosymbiosis, or merging of two cells, enabled the evolution of a highly stable and successful organism with the capacity to use energy from sunlight via photosynthesis. Further evolution led to photosynthetic organisms producing oxygen as a byproduct. The resulting oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere profoundly affected the evolution of life, leading to more complex organisms that consumed oxygen, which were the ancestors of modern oxygen-breathing creatures including humans.

Continue reading "NAI Research Reveals Major Insight into Evolution of Life on Earth" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 9:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 21 - 23, 2010 Denver, Colorado and Dinosaur Ridge, Cretaceous Dakota Sandstone, Denver

The conference presents an important and novel review on microbial mats and the sedimentary structures they form in siliciclastic settings through Earth times, from the early Archean to the present. The meeting brings together the expertise and knowledge of an international panel of leading researchers to provide a state-of-the art overview of the field. The participants give a timely review of the current and most topical areas of research, essential for all scientists interested in this rapidly growing field. For more information: http://www.sepm.org/activities/researchconferences/microbial/microbial_home.htm Source: NAI Newsletter

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Session Abstract: During most of the geologic past, life and the surface environments on Earth were profoundly different than they are today. In particular, it is generally accepted that the atmosphere was devoid of O2, or nearly so, until the "Great Oxidation Event" approximately 2.4 billion years ago. However, considerable uncertainty remains about the abundances of O2 and other oxidants during the first half of Earth history, as well as processes that constrained these abundances to seemingly trace levels. Emerging data should allow tighter constraints on Archean free oxygen concentrations, the variability of redox conditions at high temporal resolution, and the evolutionary and biogeochemical consequences of oxygenation. At the same time there is a need to refine existing proxies, assess their limitations, and develop new ones. This session will explore these issues. We encourage abstracts from a variety of areas ranging from analytical and theoretical geochemistry to genomics. For more information see
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/program/scientific_session_search.php?show=detail&sessid=219 Source: NAI Newsletter

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A central question of astrobiology concerns the origin and distribution of life in the Universe. For this reason, astrobiology can be considered to fall within the science called transitional biology. If we accept that life originated by a process of prebiotic chemical evolution, the next question concerns the nature of the transitional pathway from inanimate chemical systems to the first forms of life on Earth. These possible transitional states are the subject matter of transitional biology as a discipline.

Continue reading "Why Is the Definition of Life So Elusive? Epistemological Considerations" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 2:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With the assumption that future attempts to explore our Solar System for life will be limited by economic constraints, we have formulated a series of principles to guide future searches: (1) the discovery of life that has originated independently of our own would have greater significance than evidence for panspermia; (2) an unambiguous identification of living beings (or the fully preserved, intact remains of such beings) is more desirable than the discovery of markers or fossils that would inform us of the presence of life but not its composition; (3) we should initially seek carbon-based life that employs a set of monomers and polymers substantially different than our own, which would effectively balance the need for ease of detection with that of establishing a separate origin; (4) a "follow-the-carbon" strategy appears optimal for locating such alternative carbon-based life.

Continue reading "The Search for Alien Life in Our Solar System: Strategies and Priorities" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Scientists and non-scientists now have easy access to information about when living species and their ancestors originated, information that previously was difficult to find or inaccessible. Free access to the information is part of the new Timetree of Life initiative developed by NAI's Blair Hedges, professor of biology with the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center, and Sudhir Kumar, a professor of life sciences at Arizona State University.

The Timetree of Life project debuted with the simultaneous release of a book titled The Timetree of Life (Oxford University Press), which is written by a consortium of 105 experts on specific groups of organisms and is edited by Hedges and Kumar.

"The TimeTree of Life web tool belongs to a new genre of resources that lets anyone easily mine knowledge previously locked up in technical research articles, without needing to know the jargon of the field," said Kumar. "For example, if you type in 'cat' and 'dog,'" Hedges said, "the program will navigate through the timetree of life to the point where the cat and dog species split, and it will find all the studies bearing on that divergence. Within a few seconds, you will learn that your pet cat and dog diverged in evolutionary time about 50 to 60 million years ago." For more information: http://www.timetree.org/

[Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Pier-Luigi Luisi

The 2009 San Sebastian meeting on OQOL was the follow-up to an analogous meeting held in Erice, Sicily three years ago. The general idea was to identify and discuss the areas in the field that are still "in the darkness", i.e. remain poorly understood despite their importance. We asked what were the reasons of our persisting ignorance, and what could we do to shed light on the "dark" areas. The meeting was not organized as a series of standard lectures (the usual "talk-and-run-away" format). Instead, it was centered on several selected questions, one per half-day, which were first discussed by a panel of experts and then by all participants. The questions had been previously chosen through worldwide polling of researchers in the field. It was a very intense meeting - in four days we covered eight questions.

Continue reading "Impressions from the San Sebastian meeting Open Questions in the Origin of Life (OQOL)" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Michael Wilson

The NAI held a strategic science initiative workshop in Tempe, AZ on May 13-15, to identify areas where increased collaboration between the funded NAI teams could lead to greater scientific insights and productivity. One of the initiative areas focused on origins of life research; the origins initiative was chaired by George Cody (Carnegie team) and John Peters (Montana State team) and Stephen Freeland (University of Hawaii team).By Michael Wilson

The NAI held a strategic science initiative workshop in Tempe, AZ on May 13-15, to identify areas where increased collaboration between the funded NAI teams could lead to greater scientific insights and productivity. One of the initiative areas focused on origins of life research; the origins initiative was chaired by George Cody (Carnegie team) and John Peters (Montana State team) and Stephen Freeland (University of Hawaii team).

Continue reading "Strategic Science Initiatives in the Origins of Life Report from the NAI meeting" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NAI's Archean Biosphere Drilling Project supported the acquisition of pristine drill core samples obtained from ancient rocks in Western Australia. New results from those studies, published in the current issue of Nature Geoscience, point toward an earlier start for oxygenic photosynthesis on the early Earth than previously thought.

Continue reading "New Evidence for an Earlier Origin of Oxygenic Photosynthesis" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Members of NAI's Team at Montana State University have provided a Perspectives piece in Dalton Transactions reviewing the organo-metallic chemistry of the active sites of hydrogenase enzymes. Since hydrogen metabolism is presumed to be an early feature in the energetics of life, and hydrogen metabolizing organisms can be traced very early in molecular phylogeny, studying the metal clusters at hydrogenase active sites can reveal potential conditions in which early life arose. Efforts in this field also could have significant impacts on alternative and renewable energy solutions.

[Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

National Public Radio's Science Friday broadcasted live from Arizona State University on Friday, April 3rd as part of their Origins Symposium. The symposium, which inaugurated ASU's new Origins Initiative, featured world renowned scientists Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, and Craig Venter. The Science Friday broadcast included a panel on the Origins and Evolution of Life composed of Peter Ward, Ariel Anbar, Baruch Blumberg and Paul Davies.

Listen to the archive here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102715278

[Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ames is proud to announce the first lecture in a series on the Evolution of Science and Technology. On Thursday, March 12 at 7:00 PM at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, Dr. James Strick of Franklin & Marshall College will talk about Charles Darwin and his thoughts on the origins of life. Employees and members of the public are invited to attend this free public lecture sponsored by Ames and the NASA Astrobiology Institute. Additional lectures in the series, which honors the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth among other significant anniversaries, will be announced at a later date.

Continue reading "Lecture on Darwin and the Origin of Life" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NAI's Deep Time Drilling Project supported the drilling of several pristine cores from ancient rocks in Western Australia in 2004, and a new paper in Science, led by University of Washington astrobiologists, outlines results from the analysis of these cores. The nitrogen isotope values in the core from the 2.5-billion-year-old Mount McRae Shale vary over 30 meters, evidently recording a temporary change from an anaerobic to an aerobic nitrogen cycle, and back again to anaerobic. Other data suggest that nitrification occurred in response to a small increase in surface-ocean oxygenation. The data imply that nitrifying and denitrifying microbes had already evolved by the late Archean and were present before oxygen first began to accumulate in the atmosphere.

[Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bacteria are not usually thought of as having a natural habitat like a mammal or insect, but indirect evidence has suggested that, if anything, most of the early evolution of bacteria was in the marine environment (oceans) and not on land. Surprisingly, NAI researchers from Penn State, Fabia Battistuzzi (now at Arizona State University) and Blair Hedges, found evidence that a large group of bacteria--two-thirds of all ~10,000 described species--trace their ancestry back to a life on land, not in the oceans. These bacteria have many useful adaptations, including the production of oxygen, which now may be tied to their land-loving lifestyle. Their article appeared in the February issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Continue reading "Most Prokaryotes Trace to an Ancient Origin on Land" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Geological and biological evidence suggests that Earth was warm during most of its early history, despite the fainter young Sun. Upper bounds on the atmospheric CO2 concentration in the Late Archean/Paleoproterozoic (2.8–2.2 Ga) from paleosol data suggest that additional greenhouse gases must have been present.

Continue reading "A Revised, Hazy Methane Greenhouse for the Archean Earth" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Workshop: OPEN QUESTIONS ON THE ORIGINS OF LIFE
SAN SEBASTIAN, SPAIN, MAY 20-23, 2009
Organizers: Pier Luigi Luisi and Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo

The overall idea behind this workshop is to tackle a number of key questions about the origin of life that still remain unanswered, attempt to clarify why it is so, and to discuss how to progress in our efforts to answer these questions.

In the field of the origins of life, as in many other fields, there is a tendency and a danger for all of us to keep working in our own, fairly narrow areas of expertise and ignore "the big picture". Thus, from time to time, it is important to ask "where are we in the field and what are the main stumbling blocks on the road?" A similar meeting was already held, in a preliminary form, in Erice, Sicily, in 2006. It created a considerable interest so many researchers asked that we continue the experiment in a more developed form. In fact, one conclusion of the Erice meeting was that it should be repeated, possibly on regular basis (every 2-3 years) and involved more countries and a larger number of young researchers.

Continue reading "Astrobiology Workshop: Open Questions on the Origins of Life" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NAI - Nordic Summer School: "Water, Ice and the Origin of Life in the Universe"

Iceland, 29 June to 13 July 2009

The NASA Astrobiology Institute and the Nordic Astrobiology Network will conduct a summer school on the role of water in the evolution of life in the cosmos - in Iceland on the above dates. The school is intended for students and post-docs in astrobiology-related subjects (biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, geosciences etc.) The school will be organized in three sections:

* An introductory lecture course
* Excursions to several places in Iceland of astrobiological interest (hot springs, glaciers, geysers, Mars-like environments)
* A lab course on the geochemistry and extremophile community of hot springs (no previous experience in microbiological lab work and field research needed)

Continue reading "Nordic Summer School: "Water, Ice and the Origin of Life in the Universe"" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Members of NAI's Carnegie Institution of Washington, Indiana University, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Teams and their colleagues have revisited the Miller-Urey experiments, and found some surprising results.

A classic experiment proving amino acids are created when inorganic molecules are exposed to electricity isn't the whole story, it turns out. The 1953 Miller-Urey Synthesis had two sibling studies, neither of which was published. Vials containing the products from those experiments were recently recovered and reanalyzed using modern technology. The results are reported in Science.

Continue reading "Miller-Urey Revisited" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Starting January 1, 2009, a new 4-year program will investigate hydrothermal systems on the Mid-Cayman Spreading Center (MCSC) under NASA's ASTEP program - a joint collaboration between Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) and Duke University Marine Laboratory (DUML). The results of the work will be used to plan astrobiological exploration of any planetary body that can host hydrothermal circulation (for example, Europa).

Continue reading "2 PhD Student and 2 Postdoctoral Researcher Positions- Hydrothermal Activity on the Mid-Cayman Spreading Center" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to an article published in the Washington Post, scientists studying the Murchison meteorite have found that it contains clues to the origin of chirality. Amino acids in nature have two forms, referred to as right- and left-handed, that are mirror images of each other. The proteins in living organisms, however, are only made from left-handed amino acids. The reason for this chirality is not understood, but this new research suggests it may stem from meteorites that rained down on the young Earth.

Source; NAI Newsletter

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An ecosystem discovered 2.8 kilometers underground in the Mponeng Gold Mine near Johannesburg, South Africa two years ago has now been shown to comprise only a single species of microbe, existing on energy from radioactivity, completely independently of the Sun. The community of rod-shaped bacteria of the species Desulforudis audaxviator was discovered in 2005-06 by members of the NAI's Indiana-Princeton-Tennessee Astrobiology Initiative (IPTAI) Team. Their current results are presented in the October 10th issue of Science.

Continue reading "Life Without the Sun" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Researchers from NAI's University of Arizona team and their colleagues at the University of Leeds have a new paper in Angewandte Chemie International Edition dealing with prebiotic chemistry and the early Earth. Working both experimentally and with models of the early atmosphere, the team shows that the Hadean and early Archaean Earth was primed with an abundance of condensed phosphates, enabling the formation of the necessary precursors of RNA and DNA. This research removes one of the large stumbling blocks in prebiotic chemistry- that the early Earth lacked a low-temperature reservoir of activated phosphate compounds capable of eventually leading to the origin of life.

Source: NAI Newsletter

Posted by Keith Cowing at 7:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Members of NAI's Penn State, Carnegie Institution, and MIT teams report in a recent issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the distribution of biomarkers in 2.72-2.56 billion-year-old, Neoarchean rocks from the Hamersley Province on the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia. Their observations are consistent with a cyanobacterial source for 2-methylhopanes, in which cyanobacteria were likely the cornerstone of microbial communities in shallow-water ecosystems providing molecular oxygen, fixed carbon, and possibly fixed nitrogen.

Their data, revealing relative abundances of 3-methylhopanes, but not 2-methylhopanes, strongly correlate to stable carbon isotopic composition of insoluble particulate organic matter (kerogen). The unanticipated nature of this relationship provides evidence for a shallow-water locus of carbon cycling through aerobic oxidation of methane and, coincidentally, a means to demonstrate biomarker syngenicity.

Source: NAI Newsletter

Posted by Keith Cowing at 7:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Astrophysicists from the NAI's Carnegie Institution of Washington team and their colleagues have shown for the first time that a supernova could have triggered the solar system's formation under conditions of rapid heating and cooling. For several decades, scientists have thought that the solar system formed as a result of a shock wave from an exploding star--a supernova--that triggered the collapse of a dense, dusty gas cloud that contracted to form the sun and the planets. But detailed models of this formation process have only worked under the simplifying assumption that the temperatures during the violent events remained constant. The results, published in the October 20, 2008, issue of the Astrophysical Journal, have resolved this long-standing debate.

Source: NAI Newsletter

Posted by Keith Cowing at 7:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The NASA Exoplanet Science Institute announces the introduction of the Sagan Postdoctoral Fellowship Program and solicits applications for fellowships to begin in the fall of 2009.

The Sagan Fellowships support outstanding recent postdoctoral scientists to conduct independent research that is broadly related to the science goals of the NASA Exoplanet Exploration area. The primary goal of missions within this program is to discover and characterize planetary systems and Earth-like planets around nearby stars.

Continue reading "Carl Sagan Postdoctoral Fellowships in Exoplanet Exploration" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 6:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NAI's University of Wisconsin team presents a review of iron isotope fingerprints created through biogeochemical cycling in the May, 2008 issue of The Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. This landmark paper brings together for the first time the co-evolution records of photosynthesis, bacterial sulfate reduction, and bacterial iron reduction in the early Earth. They review data on natural systems and experiments, looking at both abiological and biological processes, and conclude that the temporal carbon, sulfur, and iron isotope record reflects the interplay of changing microbial metabolisms over Earth's history. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 6:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Date/Time: Monday, September 29, 2008 11:00AM Pacific
Speaker: Norm Sleep, Stanford University

Abstract: Silicate super-earths are rocky planets with masses up to ~10 that of the Earth. They are of astrobiological interest because they are relatively easy to detect around other stars. Tectonics enhances habitability on the Earth by exhuming biologically important elements. Plate tectonics are too poorly understood on the Earth to tell whether this process should occur on larger planets. Still the Gauss' law relationship that surface heat flow scales with surface gravity provides some insight and yields that the geotherm expressed in terms of pressure is to the first order invariant to planetary size.

Continue reading "NAI Director's Seminar: Norm Sleep, "Habitability of Superearths"" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 5:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Members of NAI's University of Wisconsin, Madison team have a new paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters presenting their analyses of 4.35 - 3.36 billion year old detrital zircons from the Jack Hills, Western Australia. Their data reveal relatively high lithium abundances compared to other zircons, as well as lithium isotope ratios that are similar to continental crust weathering products rather than ocean floor basalts. The results support the hypothesis that continental-type crust and oceans existed by 4.3 billion years ago, and suggest that weathering was extensive in the early Archean.

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Astrobiologists hypothesize that shallow water, not deep water, may have cradled the planet's first life; that the dark, carbon-poor depths offered little energy to emerging life. But the newfound abundance of seafloor microbes makes it theoretically possible that early life thrived - and maybe even began - on the seafloor. "Some might even favor the deep ocean for the emergence of life since it was a bastion of stability compared with the surface, which was constantly being blasted by comets and other objects," suggests study author and NAI member Katrina Edwards in the University of Southern California press release. For images and resources, see NSF's press page. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Researchers from NAI's Marine Biological Laboratory Team continue their study of the deep biosphere, reporting the latest results in Nature. This new study reveals that bacterial communities dwelling on ocean-bottom rocks are more abundant and diverse than previously thought, especially relative to the overlying water column. The microbes appear to ?feed? on the oceanic crust through seawater-rock alteration reactions involving the oxidation and hydration of glassy basalt. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dear Colleague, The National Science Foundation's Assembling the Tree of Life (AToL) solicitation has recently been renewed and updated (see the program solicitation, NSF 08-515; http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf08515). As in the past, the AToL competition will support creative and innovative research to resolve evolutionary relationships for large groups of organisms. The program also supports research on theory and methods and tool development for these large scale phylogenetic investigations. With this letter we wish to draw your attention to several new and/or enhanced areas of interest. Proposals in the following areas are especially encouraged:

Continue reading "NSF Dear Colleague Letter - Assembling the Tree of Life Solicitation" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Astrobiology December 2007, 7(6): 819-823

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2007.0207

A key challenge in Astrobiology is to comprehend life and its interaction with the environment at a level sufficiently fundamental to embrace the alternative biochemistries that may be encountered in a search for life elsewhere (Baross et al., 2007).

Continue reading "A "Follow the Energy" Approach for Astrobiology" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Astrobiology December 2007, 7(6): 1023-1032

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2006.0091

The shallow habitable region of cratonal crust deforms with a strain rate on the order of 1019 s1. This is rapid enough that small seismic events are expected on one-kilometer spatial scales and one-million-year timescales. Rock faulting has the potential to release batches of biological substrate, such as dissolved H2, permitting transient blooms.

Continue reading "Did Earthquakes Keep the Early Crust Habitable?" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Astrobiology December 2007, 7(6): 1006-1022

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2007.0156

Europa is a prime target for astrobiology. The presence of a global subsurface liquid water ocean and a composition likely to contain a suite of biogenic elements make it a compelling world in the search for a second origin of life. Critical to these factors, however, may be the availability of energy for biological processes on Europa.

Continue reading "Energy, Chemical Disequilibrium, and Geological Constraints on Europa" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Astrobiology December 2007, 7(6): 987-1005

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2007.0075

We examine means for driving hydrothermal activity in extraterrestrial oceans on planets and satellites of less than one Earth mass, with implications for sustaining a low level of biological activity over geological timescales. Assuming ocean planets have olivine-dominated lithospheres, a model for cooling-induced thermal cracking shows how variation in planet size and internal thermal energy may drive variation in the dominant type of hydrothermal system--for example, high or low temperature system or chemically driven system.

Continue reading "Hydrothermal Systems in Small Ocean Planets" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Astrobiology December 2007, 7(6): 873-890

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2007.0127

Formate, a simple organic acid known to support chemotrophic hyperthermophiles, is found in hot springs of varying temperature and pH. However, it is not yet known how metabolic strategies that use formate could contribute to primary productivity in hydrothermal ecosystems. In an effort to provide a quantitative framework for assessing the role of formate metabolism, concentration data for dissolved formate and many other solutes in samples from Yellowstone hot springs were used, together with data for coexisting gas compositions, to evaluate the overall Gibbs energy for many reactions involving formate oxidation or reduction.

Continue reading "Formate as an Energy Source for Microbial Metabolism in Chemosynthetic Zones of Hydrothermal Ecosystems" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Astrobiology December 2007, 7(6): 852-872

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2006.0066

There are growing indications that life began in a radioactive beach environment. A geologic framework for the origin or support of life in a Hadean heavy mineral placer beach has been developed, based on the unique chemical properties of the lower-electronic actinides, which act as nuclear fissile and fertile fuels, radiolytic energy sources, oligomer catalysts, and coordinating ions (along with mineralogically associated lanthanides) for prototypical prebiotic homonuclear and dinuclear metalloenzymes.

Continue reading "Actinides and Life's Origins" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Researchers from NAI's University of Hawai'i Team and their colleagues have a new paper in Geobiology reviewing recent work on the climatic, geochemical, and ecological events that preceded animal fossils, considering their portent for metazoan evolution. They also consider recent published research on the nature and chronology of the earliest fossil record of metazoans, and on the molecular-based analysis that yielded dates older than the last 35 million years of the Precambrian for the appearance of major animal groups.

[Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NAI's Astrobiology Drilling Program supported researchers in 2004 to obtain subsurface core samples from the Hamersley Basin in Western Australia. Those samples, representing the time just before the Great Oxidation Event, have been analyzed, and two research papers detailing the results (Anbar, et al. and Kaufman, et al.) appear in September 28, 2007 issue of Science. Both groups found unexpected, correlated changes that reveal the presence of small but significant amounts of O2 in the environment 2.5 billion years ago, ~50-100 milion years before the Great Oxidation Event, and a shift from lower O2 abundance prior to that time. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Speaker: Ariel Anbar (Arizona State University)
Date/Time: Monday, November 5, 2007 11:00 AM PST

Abstract: Many lines of evidence point to a rapid rise of atmospheric O2 between 2.45 - 2.22 billion years ago (Ga), a transition often referred to as the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). The cause of the GOE is unknown. It could have been an immediate consequence of the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis. Alternatively, O2 biogenesis may be ancient and the GOE a consequence of an abiotic shift in the balance of oxidants and reductants at the Earth's surface that crossed a critical threshold at that time. In the latter case, oxygenic photosynthesis could have evolved long before the GOE. This debate can be addressed by looking for evidence of localized or short-lived concentrations of O2 before 2.45 Ga.

Continue reading "NAI Director's Seminar: "A Whiff of Oxygen before the Great Oxidation Event"" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Researchers from NAI's Carnegie Institution of Washington Team have a paper in Nature describing evidence that Earth's Mesoarchean atmosphere (3.2 and 2.8 Gya) possessed very low amounts oxygen. These findings contrast with prior claims that Earth's atmosphere underwent its first rise in oxygen during the Mesoarchean, and indicate that oxygen first rose above parts per million levels sometime between 2.45 and 2.4 billion years ago. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Biomarkers in rocks prior to the rise in Earth's atmospheric oxygen 2.5 billion years ago show cyanobacteria released oxygen at the same levels as today. What was happening to that oxygen? A new paper in Nature from NAI's Penn State Team proposes that the rise of atmospheric oxygen occurred because the predominant sink for oxygen--enhanced submarine volcanism--was abruptly and permanently diminished during the Archaean-Proterozoic transition by a shift from predominantly submarine volcanism to a mix of subaerial and submarine volcanism.

Source: NAI Newsletter

Posted by Keith Cowing at 7:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Speaker: Norman Pace (University of Colorado, Boulder), Date/Time: Monday, September 24, 2007 11AM PDT

Abstract: Life anywhere in the universe is likely to be based on carbon and to have a basic biochemistry similar to our own. The fundamental demands of life anywhere thus are the same: to capture energy in order to transform organic chemistry into more of self. In order to accomplish these tasks and thrive, terrestrial life has penetrated all permissible thermodynamic and physical niches offered by planet Earth. Consequently, it is likely that terrestrial life offers models for life in almost any habitable niche in the Universe. Knowledge of terrestrial diversity thus informs us about possible life anywhere.

Continue reading "NAI Director's Seminar: "Life in the Universe: The Expanding World of Microbial Diversity"" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This new video from JPL shows how NASA astrobiologists are gathering exciting clues that will help them pick the best spots to search for possible signs of life beyond Earth. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/phoenix/phx20070724/ [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 6, 2007 to August 10, 2007

Each summer, NAI's Marine Biological Laboratory Team offers a one-week workshop for middle and high school teachers focusing on activities that can be incorporated into existing classroom curricula. Resident and visiting scientists from the Woods Hole community present teachers with background information and updates on current research developments on a variety of topics related to the importance of microbes and microbial processes in the biosphere.

Posted by Keith Cowing at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

THE LIMITS OF ORGANIC LIFE IN PLANETARY SYSTEMS, a new report from the National Research Council, examines the search for life elsewhere in the universe and whether the fundamental requirements for life as we generally know it are the only ways phenomena recognized as "life" could be supported beyond our planet.

Continue reading "The National Academies Search for 'weird' life" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NAI scientists from the Carnegie Institution of Washington Team and their colleagues have a new paper in Geology outlining their process in resolving the mysterious identity of the Devonian fossil organism Prototaxities as a fungus. The team analyzed carbon isotopic ratios of the fossil relative to plants that lived in the same environment 400 million years ago. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

UW Seminar: Four Billion Years of Climate Change (Lessons from the Precambrian): From Oxygen Poisoning to Snowballs & True Polar Wander Presenter: Joe Kirschvink

Date/Time: 5/29/2007 02:30 PM PDT

Continue reading "Seminar" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Multidisciplinary work from members of NAI's SETI Institute Team and a host of collaborators across the NAI re-examines what is known at present about the potential for a terrestrial planet forming within, or migrating into, the classic liquid–surface–water habitable zone close to an M dwarf star. Their new paper, published in the current issue of Astrobiology, presents the summary conclusions of an interdisciplinary workshop sponsored by NAI and convened at the SETI Institute in 2005. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Differently colored plants may live on extra-solar planets, according to two new papers in the current issue of Astrobiology authored by members of NAI's Virtual Planetary Laboratory Alumni Team and their colleagues. They took previously simulated planetary atmospheric compositions for Earth-like planets orbiting various star types (including M stars), generated spectra, and found that photosynthetic pigments may peak in absorbance in the blue for some star types, and red-orange and near-infrared for others. Their results also suggest that, under water, organisms would still be able to survive ultraviolet flares from young M stars and acquire adequate light for growth - which greatly increases the scope for habitability in these systems. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Search for Habitable Planets Outside Earth's Solar System in Astrobiology

"Which planets outside of Earth's Solar System are most likely to be capable of supporting life is a question that will be the focus of both a NASA-sponsored workshop later this year and a special collection of papers in the Spring 2007 (Volume 7, Number 1) issue of Astrobiology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc."

Posted by Keith Cowing at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Special session at the 210th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Hawaii
Thursday May 31 (Morning) Convenors: Nader Haghighipour and Eric Gaidos (University of Hawaii NAI Lead Team)

Continue reading "Hot Earths: Formation, Detection and Structure" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NAI's Marine Biological Laboratory and Carnegie Institution of Washington Teams are contributing authors on a new paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters presenting a new model for the evolution of Proterozoic deep seawater composition based on rare earth elements. Their data suggest transitional, suboxic conditions in the deep ocean (vs. sulfidic), which likely limited nutrient concentrations in seawater and, consequently, may have constrained biological evolution. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Special Session "Microbially mediated processes governing the redox cycling of metals" at the 2007 Goldschmidt Conference, Cologne (Germany) Session Organizers: Colleen Hansel, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University Andreas Kappler, Center for Applied Geoscience, University of Tübingen

Continue reading "Microbially mediated processes governing the redox cycling of metals" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dr. Joshua Lederberg, a Nobel-winning microbiolgist whose advice helped create NASA's early biology programs, will receive the Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor.

Continue reading "NASA Advisor on the Search for Life to Receive Medal of Freedom" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Robert Hazen, from NAI's Carnegie Institution of Washington Team, published his 2005 Presidential Address to the Mineralogical Society of America in this month's American Mineralogist.

Continue reading "Mineral Surfaces and Life" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The December 2006 issue of Geobiology is a collection of papers focusing on the history of Earth's biogeochemistry, from the earliest sedimentary rocks in Greenland to the late Proterozoic. The rise of atmospheric oxygen provides a thematic link.

Continue reading "Oxygen and Life in the Precambrian" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NAI has approved funding for the development of a new, state-of-the-art facility capable of recreating past atmospheric and oceanic conditions, to be called VAL, the Variable Atmospheres Laboratory. Capable of simulating various combinations of oxygen, carbon dioxide, temperature, and hydrogen sulfide levels, this facility will be able to test new hypotheses for the cause of some of the Earth's major mass extinction events - such as the Permian and Triassic mass extinctions.

Continue reading "NAI Researchers to Recreate Conditions of the Early Earth" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Scientists from NAI's Penn State Team have contributed to a new book entitled "Neoproterozoic Geobiology and Paleobiology," Xiao, Shuhai; Kaufman, Alan J. (Eds.). Their article, entitled "Molecular Timescale of Evolution in the Proterozoic," is one of many sections exploring topics from the rise in complexity of life, to phylogeny and timing of prokaryotes and eukaryotes, the colonization of land by plants and fungi, global glaciations, and "oxygen and the Cambrian explosion."

Continue reading "New Book on the Neoproterozoic" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (B). Organised and edited by Charles Cockell, Sydney Leach and Ian Smith Published August 2006

Continue reading "Conditions for the Emergence of Life on the Early Earth: Special Issue Special Issue" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 9:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Speakers: Sean Raymond (University of Colorado) and Avi Mandell (Goddard Space Flight Center) Date/Time: Monday, November 27, 2006 11AM PST

Continue reading "NAI Director's Seminar 11/27: Formation of Habitable Planetary Systems: Are We Normal?" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 9:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Peter Ward from NAI's Alumni Team at the University of Washington and his collaborators have a new paper out in PNAS providing supportive evidence for Romer's Gap. Their results link this gap in vertebrate terrestrialization with a low atmospheric oxygen interval. This paper supports Ward's new book on the evolution of effective respiratory systems, entitled "Out of Thin Air." [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Join us for the next University of Washington Astrobiology Seminar! David Deamer of U.C. Santa Cruz will be speaking on the topic "Self-assembly Processes in the Prebiotic Environment"

Continue reading "University of Washington Seminar: Self-assembly Processes in the Prebiotic Environment" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Join us for the next University of Washington Astrobiology Seminar! George Shaw of Union College will be speaking on the topic "A (not so) Brief History of Carbon on Earth." Date/Time: Tuesday, October 24, 2:30PM PDT (11:30am HT/3:30pm MDT/4:30pm CDT/5:30pm EDT)

Continue reading "University of Washington Seminar: A (not so) Brief History of Carbon on Earth" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 1:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are providing matching support towards the study of the ancient rock record of the early Earth, between 2.0 and 2.5 billion years ago. This period represents one of the critical transitions in the Earth's history as it reflects the emergence of the modern aerobic, or oxygen-rich Earth system.

Continue reading "NAI and NSF Provide Joint Funding to Understand the Environment of the Earth More Than 2 Billion Years Ago" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 1:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With NAI support, the Evolutionary Genomics Focus Group hosted a one-day symposium on Friday, May 26th, at Arizona State University. Blair Hedges (Penn State) organized the event, which featured 15 speakers from the U.S. and Europe and more than 100 participants, during the annual meeting for the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Continue reading "Discovering the Timetree of Life Symposium" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In conjunction with the 2006 GRC Origin of Life conference, organizers are offering the first Origin of Life Graduate Research Seminar. The Graduate Research Seminar is designed to identify top young talent in diverse fields and encourage them to present cutting edge research in origin of life contexts.

Continue reading "Graduate Research Seminar - Origin of Life (Gordon Research Conference)" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewed this week in Science, Robert Hazen's new work, "Genesis: The Search for Life's Origin" was published recently with Joseph Henry Press. Hazen, from NAI's Carnegie Institution of Washington Team, has woven together a look at life in the Geophysical Laboratory and the history of origin of life theory and debate for an "...engaging, sometimes dramatic tale." To read the review, go here. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Applications are now being accepted for the 2006 Gordon Research Conference on the Origin of Life, at Bates College, Maine, July 23-28. Please visit http://www.grc.org/programs/2006/origin.htm for more information. Due to the the first Origin of Life Graduate Research Seminar being held in conjunction with the regular GRC OOL, a significant response is anticipated. Applicants are encouraged to apply early.

Posted by Keith Cowing at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

20 - 21 June, 2006, Shine Dome, Australian Academy of Science, Gordon Street, Acton, ACT

This conference is convened to pay tribute to the work of Paul Davies, following the occasion of his 60th birthday (4.22.2006). Davies' publications explore pathways starting from the Big Bang, subatomic particles, atoms and molecules, through to the origin of life and intelligence, realms of human consciousness and spiritual dimensions, and leading to the motto "We were meant to be here." (Davies, 1998). For more information: http://www.manningclark.org.au/events/stars/index.html

Posted by Keith Cowing at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)