Big Picture Science for May 04, Is Life Inevitable?

Big Picture Science - Is Life Inevitable?

(Repeat) A new theory about life’s origins updates Darwin’s warm little pond.  Scientists say they’ve created the building blocks of biology in steaming hot springs. Meanwhile, we visit a NASA lab where scientists simulate deep-sea vent chemistry to produce the type of environment that might spawn life.  Which site is best suited for producing biology from chemistry?

Find out how the conditions of the early Earth were different from today, how meteors seeded Earth with organics, and a provocative idea that life arose as an inevitable consequence of matter shape-shifting to dissipate heat. Could physics be the driving force behind life’s emergence?

Guests:

• Caleb Scharf – Director of Astrobiology at Columbia University, New York
• Laurie Barge – Research scientist in astrobiology at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Bruce Damer – Research scientist in biomolecular engineering, University of California, 
• Jeremy England – Physicist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This repeat podcast was previously released on May 13, 2019

Download podcast at - http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/is-life-inevitable

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.