"What are the chances of a biochemistry occuring on Titan--even though temperatures are very small."
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Kepler's Search for "Alien Earths" Covered by CNN
NASA’s Kepler mission, which will search for Earth-like planets in our galaxy, launches next week. CNN.com has the full story, including a special video interview with the mission’s Principal Investigator, Bill Borucki.
February 25, 2009 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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Cycling Nitrogen
NASA-funded researchers at the University of Washington have shown that microorganisms completed large-scale steps in the their evolution by 2.5 billion years ago. This means that the major branches of microbial life were before we have any record of them. One important aspect of this evolution was the development of microbes capable of fixing nitrogen. This metabolic pathway had profound effects on the environment of Earth and the evolution of all life on our planet.
Source: [Astrobiology Magazine]
February 22, 2009 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal
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Unlocking the Combination
Researchers in the field of synthetic biology are still a long way away from being able to assemble living cells from raw materials. However, their research is now yielding important clues about the origin of life on Earth. By studying how molecules self-assemble, a team of scientists from UC Santa Cruz is shedding light on how the first protocells were able to capture energy and nutrients from the environment – ultimately allowing for growth and reproduction. The results of their research were recently presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in...
Source: [Astrobiology Magazine]
February 18, 2009 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal
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Echoes of Extinction
The mass extinction of the dinosaurs and many other organisms 65 million-years-ago has left lasting effects on the evolution of life on Earth. A team of NASA-funded researchers has performed a global study on marine bivalves, and the results indicate that these organisms began originating new species faster than ever following the end of the Cretaceous period.
Source: [Astrobiology Magazine]
February 13, 2009 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal
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Oldest Evidence for Animals in the Fossil Record
Detected through their molecular remains, fossils of early sponges have been observed in ancient rocks in Oman. The fossils occur in strata that underlie a cap carbonate dated at >635 million years ago. This discovery suggests that shallow waters contained dissolved oxygen in concentrations sufficient to support early animal life at least 100 million years before the Cambrian explosion. Members of NAI’s MIT team led the effort, and publish their findings in the current issue of Nature.
February 4, 2009 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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Great Oxidation Event Got Earlier Start
NAI’s Archean Biosphere Drilling Project supported the drilling of several pristine cores from ancient rocks in Western Australia, with the goal of furthering our understanding of the atmosphere, oceans, climate, and biosphere of early Earth. A new paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters from NAI’s Penn State Team outlines results from the analyses of these cores. Their studies evidence oxygenated surface environments, at least localized and/or short-lived, emerging more than 300 million years before the widely accepted Great Oxidation Event during 2.45 and 2.32 billion years ago. This implies that the...
January 29, 2009 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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Goldschmidt Session on Exobiology
Exobiology: Are any Terrestrial Extremophiles Plausible Proxies for Hypothesized Microbial Life on Venus, Mars, or the Jovian Planets and their Satellites (E.g., Titan, Europa, Callisto, Enceladus)?
Convenors: Anna-Louise Reysenbach, David DesMarais
Investigations of contemporary microbial communities can guide our exploration of Earth’s early biosphere as well as our search for life elsewhere in the solar system. Life as we know it requires liquid water. Evidence for the presence or past activity of water has been detected on several planetary bodies besides Earth. Accordingly our search for signs of past or present life elsewhere in the Solar System is enhanced by studies...
Source: [Link]
January 29, 2009 / Posted by: Shige Abe
