FREE open to the general public.
Registration is not required.
Light Refreshments will be served, compliments of the PLATO Special Events Committee
Lecture: “The Science of the Origin of Life”.
Nearly four billion years ago the first forms of life began to appear on the earth. Did life
emerge spontaneously from the primordial soup found in puddles on the cooling earth
surface? Did life arise somewhere else in the Universe and come to the earth via
meteors?
For more than fifty years scientists have tried to recreate the conditions of the early earth
in their laboratories and found that the basic building blocks of life can be formed
through random interactions of simple compounds likely found on the early earth. This
gives rise to the larger question – how did these simple building blocks assemble
themselves into the complex structures required for cells to function? Although most
scientists assume that nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) played essential roles in the
formation of the earliest life, Dr. David Baum (UW Madison) and others believe that
primitive forms of life might have existed without nucleic acids. Although each year
important discoveries are made in this field, many fundamental questions about how life
began remain unanswered.
Speaker: Dr. William Eisinger
Dr. William Eisinger is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biology at Santa Clara University. While he was a graduate student he was introduced to origin of life studies by Dr. Sidney Fox a pioneer in the field and at Santa Clara University worked with Dr. H. P. Klein and other scientists from NASA Ames
Location & Parking Instructions:
The lecture will be held at Oak Park Place, 718 Jupiter Dr, Madison, WI 53718-2950.
Map Directions: This link will allow you to type in your current address and will provide directions to Oak Park Place.
There is street parking in front of the building. Additional parking can be found behind Oak Park Place.
Questions? Contact information:
Aleta Murray, a-murray@sbcglobal.net or 608 276-8531.
