10th ISSOL Meeting
13th International Conference on the Origin of Life
Oaxaca City, Mexico, June 30-July 5, 2002
Less than a year from now, ISSOL's Latin American colleagues and the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) will host a gala triennial meeting -- June 30-July 5, 2002. Mark the dates on your calendar, now!
Over the years, we have met together in wonderful venues -- Barcelona (twice!), Berkeley, Jerusalem, Kyoto, Mainz, Moscow, Orléans, Pont à Mousson, Prague, San Diego, Wakulla Springs -- and Oaxaca City, Mexico, promises to be the very best yet. Beaches, Jungles, Mariachi Bands, Wondrous Cuisine, Historic Architecture, Fantastic Prehispanic Ruins, in the heart of southern Mexico's Sierra Madre del Sur! Nothing could be better!
The Local Organizing Committee is doing a wonderful job preparing the conference. With Antonio Lazcano at the helm, backed by his hard-working UNAM colleagues (G. Cocho, R. Navarro-González, A. Negrón-Mendoza, A. Becerra, L. Delaye, S. Ramos-Bernal, and S. I. Ramírez) and vocals and a regional Latin American Committee, we can all count on experiencing a rare treat when we arrive in Oaxaca.
The science will be superb! Our field is moving ahead in leaps and bounds. Problems that only a few years ago seemed all but unsolvable have now been put to rest. And with the almost unbelievable current upsurge of activity in astrobiology/exobiology, ISSOL is at the focus, the very center, of worldwide interest. ISSOL'02 will do no less than bring together the best workers in the world who will present their very latest findings. This meeting, above all others, will be a benchmark in the development of our science!
Additional information see http://www.biologia.unam.mx/issol/oaxaca.html or contact the Local Organizing Committee at issol@nuclecu.unam.mx or see the second announcement.
Books
The New Science of Astrobiology
From Genesis of the Living Cell to Evolution of Intelligent Behavior in the Universe
by Julian Chela-Flores
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy; and Instituto de Estudios Avanzados (IDEA), Caracas, Venezuela
Book Series: CELLULAR ORIGIN AND LIFE IN EXTREME HABITATS (see below) : Volume 3
Astrobiology is a very broad interdisciplinary field covering the origin, evolution, distribution, and destiny of life in the universe, as well as the design and implementation of missions for solar system exploration. A review covering its complete spectrum has been missing at a level accessible even to the non-specialist.
The last section of the book consists of a supplement, including a glossary, notes, and tables, which represent highly condensed "windows" into research ranging from basic sciences to earth and life sciences, as well as the humanities. These additions should make The New Science of Astrobiology accessible to a wide readership: scientists, humanists, and the general reader will have an opportunity to participate in one of the most rewarding activities of contemporary culture.
Contents
Foreword; J. Seckbach. Preface. Book 1: Origin of Life in the Universe. Introduction: What is astrobiology? Part I: Chemical Evolution: Foundations for the Study of the Origin of Life in the Universe. 1. >From cosmic to chemical evolution. 2. From chemical to prebiotic evolution. 3. Sources for life's origins: A search for biogenic elements. Part II: Prebiotic Evolution: The Birth of Biomolecules. 4. From prebiotic evolution to single cells. Book 2: Evolution of Life in the Universe. 5. From the age of prokaryotes the origin of eukaryotes. 6. Eukaryogenesis and evolution of intelligent behavior. Book 3: Distribution and Destiny of Life in the Universe. Part I: Exobiology: Scientific Bases for the Study of the Life of Other Worlds. 7. On the possibility of biological evolution on Mars. 8. On the possibility of biological evolution on Europa. 9. On the possibility of chemical evolution on Titan.
Part II:
Bioastronomy: The Study of Astronomical Phenomena Related to Life. 10. How different would life be elsewhere? 11. The search for evolution of extraterrestrial intelligent behavior. 12. Is the evolution of intelligent behavior universal? Part III: Cultural Foundations for the Discussion of the Destiny of Life in the Universe. 13. Deeper implications of the search for extraterrestrial life. 14. Philosophical implications of the search for extraterrestrial civilizations. 15. Back to the beginning of astrobiology. 16. Recapitulation. Book 4: Supplement. Notes and References. Glossary. Supplementary Reading. Indices. About the Author.
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- Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht
- Hardbound, ISBN 0-7923-7125-9
- October 2001, 288 pp. EUR 120.00 / USD 112.00 / GBP 74.00
- Web site for this book: http://www.wkap.nl/book.htm/0-792
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COLE : CELLULAR ORIGIN AND LIFE IN EXTREME HABITATS
Chief Editor of the series is Joseph Seckbach - COLE SITE: http://www.wkap.nl/prod/s/COLE
- Volume 4: Symbiosis
Joseph Seckbach
Hardbound, ISBN 1-4020-0189-4, February 2002
- Volume 3: The New Science of Astrobiology
Julian Chela-Flores
Hardbound, ISBN 0-7923-7125-9, October 2001
- Volume 2: Journey to Diverse Microbial Worlds
Joseph Seckbach
Hardbound, ISBN 0-7923-6020-6, September 2000
- Volume 1: Enigmatic Microorganisms and Life in Extreme Environments
Joseph Seckbach
Hardbound, 0-7923-5492-3, February 1999
Sparks of life: Darwinism and the Victorian Debate Over Spontaneous Generation
James E. Strick, (Program in History of Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544-1017 USA)
Harvard University Press 2000, ISBN 0 674 00292 X
Darwinians wrestle with the origin of life problem,1860-1880
This book describes how Darwinians and their opponents wrestled with the origin of life problem in the first two decades after Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES was published. It debunks the standard story of how Huxley supposedly coined the term "biogenesis" and shows that the chief advocates of spontaneous generation were medical doctors with strong loyalty to Darwinism and engaged in the cutting edge laboratory science of the day. The most outstanding, Henry Charlton Bastian, was one of the outstanding rising stars among the young Darwinians, and he was eventually attacked and discredited by Huxley and Tyndall, as much for reasons of maintaining discipline around a unified "party line" in the Darwinian camp as based upon experimental evidence. The book also shows how changes in cell theory, the understanding of Brownian movement, and "histological molecules" were involved. Thus, in many ways, this story shows how the standard Darwinian consensus on the origin of life question first crystallized, specifically in response to Bastian as seed-crystal. Huxley's claim that the origin must have occurred by abiogenesis at least once, but only in the Earth's distant past, was first explicitly formulated as a response to the challenge of Bastian's experiments.
"Must all life come from preexisting life? Do all cells, including those of the tiniest wall-less bacteria, arise only from division of parental cells that they resemble? Isn't the central idea of evolution that all life is descended with modifications from previous, ancestral life? If so, then how could the earliest life originate without living predecessors?... These questions abounded in intellectual, medical, and naturalist circles in the decades just after Lyell's geological and Darwin's biological books became widely known. They are the focus of James Strick's Sparks of Life. Thankfully for the reader, Strick approaches them as an historian but one having scientific acumen and, especially, knowledge of modern microbiology and its antecedents." -- Lynn Margulis, Science
"You might think that after On the Origin of Species that...obviously, if evolution was true, sometime in the distant past [there must have been] the natural creation of life from non-life· and you can certainly argue (as Darwin did himself) that once life got up and running, it would itself destroy the circumstances under which one might expect life ever again to come from non-life. However as James Strick shows in his excellently written and beautifully informed study,...the origin of life question was not about to go away that easily· Strick has a good tale to tell and--trained both as a historian and as a scientist-- he tells it well." Michael Ruse, Endeavour
James E. Strick is visiting assistant professor in the Program in History of Science, Princeton University.
Algae and extreme environments. Ecology and Physiology.
Proceedings of the International Conference 11-16 September 2000 Trebon, Czech Republic. Dedicated to Prof. Jiri Komarek on the occasion of his 70th birthday
Eds.: Elster, Josef; Seckbach, Joseph; Vincent, Warwick F.; Lhotskà, Oldrich
2002(2001). XV , 602 pages, 340 figures, 83 tables, 6 plates, 24x17cm
(Nova Hedwigia Beihefte Beiheft 123)
- ISBN 3-443-51045-0 paperback, EUR 148.00
Status: in stock and ready to ship
- © Gebr. Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, Science Publishers, Stuttgart 2002.
- Prices subject to change without notice. Preisnderung und Irrtum vorbehalten. Mon Feb 18 22:19:43 2002.
- Page URL: http://www.schweizerbart.de/pubs/books/bo/novahedwig-051012300-desc.html
- Available through good booksellers or directly from:
- E.Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Science Publishers, Johannesstr. 3A
- D-70176 Stuttgart, Germany. Phone +49-711-625001 Order FAX +49-711-625005 mail@schweizerbart.de
Astrobiology: The Quest for the Conditions of Life
G. Horneck, Institut für Luft- und Raumfahrtmedizin des DLR, Köln
C. Baumstark-Khan, Institut für Luft- und Raumfahrtmedizin des DLR, Köln, (Eds.)
How did life originate in the Universe? How did it all start after the creation of matter and the formation of elements in the stars? What are the pathways from the first organic molecules in space to the evolution of complex forms on Earth and perhaps elsewhere? And how will it all end? The Universe itself sets the stage for the very interdisciplinary field of astrobiology that attempts to answer such questions, the central one being: What is the (cosmic) recipe for life? Currently there are only very few known elements in this vast mosaic. This book bridges a gap in the literature by bringing together leading specialists from different background who lecture their fields, with close relevance to astrobiology, providing tutorial accounts that lead all the way to the forefront of research. This book will thus be useful for students, lectures and researchers alike.
Contents: Organic Material in Space and Habitable Zones. Water and Life. Electromagnetic Fields, Radiation and Life. Gravity and Life. Forthcoming Space Missions Relevant for Astrobiology
2001. XV, 413 pp. 110 figs., 36 in colour, 25 tabs. Hardcover DM 99,90; 37,-; FF 403,-sFr 88,-; Lit. 118.060; as of Jan. 2002: Euro 49,95 ISBN 3-540-42101-7
Springer, Customer Service, Haberstr. 7, 69126 Heidelberg, Germany
Fax: ++49 6221 345 299 Email: orders@springer.de
Cambridge University Press is pleased to announce the launch of the International Journal of Astrobiology. The journal aims to become a major forum for the study of astrobiology and will publish peer-reviewed research papers, review articles, book reviews and news of interest to the astrobiology community. Astrobiology combines the sciences of biology, chemistry, palaeontology, geology, atmospheric physics, planetary science, astrophysics and cosmology in the study of the origin, evolution and distribution of life in the universe. As a fusion discipline, it is evolving from an eclectic collection of sub-disciplines to becoming an integrated science in its own right.
For further information, visit the journal homepage at Cambridge Journals Online:
http://journals.cambridge.org
If you have any queries, please email astrobiology@cambridge.org
Election of the New Executive Council
According to the ISSOL by laws, the election of Society Officers and Councillors takes place every three years. For the next turn, we are happy to inform you, that the ballots for the elections of the new Executive Council have been sent out. Eligible to vote are all Full members. During the next days or already right now all FULL members "in good standing" (which have paid their dues at least until 2000) and all Provisional members will receive a letter including the ballot, a signature page and a return envelope addressed to the secretary of ISSOL, Dr. Gerda Horneck.
We set our hopes on your active participation and looking forward to an interesting election.
Please note: ballots must reach the secretary not later than 1st May 2002.
We set our hopes on your active participation in the elections and are looking forward to meeting With best wishes and hope to see a lot of you at our 10th Triennial Meeting in Oaxaca
Gerda Horneck, Secretary
First call for paper to ORIGIN volume 20/1/2002C
Dear colleagues, friends and potential contributors;
We are organizing a new volume entitled "ORIGINS, EVOLUTION and BIODIVERSITY of MICROBIAL LIFE" which will be a new link in our Kluwer's book series of COLE (Cellular Origins and Life in Extreme Habitats) (see above). This is the first call for contributions to the new book on the following fields: Origin of life (on surface, subsurface, in marine and terrestrial), From Chemical to Biological Evolution, The first (prokaryan) cells, Eukaryogenesis, Life on the Edge, and From Extremophiles to Astrobiology.
I approach you as one of the experts in the above lines, while during the last year and a half, I have spoken with several of you and got the oral commitment to contribute your chapter from several of you. We hope you will keep your oral agreement and would appreciate your prompt positive reply and also the tentative title of your contribution. In case that you are not interested in writing your chapter, could you recommend additional competent authors in our Origin areas?
Remember, all our chapters should follow our previous Kluwer book series of COLE (see below) in their layout style and written as general Review articles. Our deadline would be December 2002 and I hope that you will make it easily to that time. Remember, In general there would be NO Acceptance after this date. The manuscripts would be sent out to reviewers and have to be mailed to us as Camera Ready hard copies ready for printing by the publisher.
Please reply soon and let us know your chapter's title and the authors (in case of co-authors). We would appreciate also if you inform us in case you are not ready or not able to contribute your chapter (so we would not "remind" you for your missing reply to our call). Following your positive reply, you will receive all the relevant technical information about preparing your chapter.
I thank all of you for your positive replies and am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Joseph Seckbach
Chief Editor of COLE, KLUWER, The Netherlands. seckbach@huji.ac.il
P.S. In case you are not interested contributing your chapter, please let me know soon, so I will delete your name from our list and not send you additional reminding notes.
Web Site: http://shum.cc.huji.ac.il/~seckbach
RECENT BOOK EDITING
COLE SITE: http://www.wkap.nl/series.htm/COLE
http://www.wkap.nl/book.htm/0-7923-2635-0
http://www.biologie.Uni-freiburg.de/ise/proceedings.htm
In memoriam
J. Mayo Greenberg (1922 - 2001)
J. Mayo Greenberg, one of the great pioneers in space science, passed away on November 29, 2001 at the age of 79. He will remain in our memory as an exceptionally enthusiastic scientist, who succeeded long before the new term astrobiology was coined - to build the bridge across classical disciplines, from astrochemistry to exobiology.
Mayo Greenberg was born in 1922 in Baltimore and began his studies on physics at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1937 where he started his Ph.D. studies in 1939. After an interruption during the second world war, he finished his thesis in theoretical physics in 1948 with a theory on the scattering of radiation by matter. His scientific career included research activities at the universities of Delaware and Maryland, until in 1952 he became assistant professor at the Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy (New York) and shortly thereafter he received a full professorship. His interest in astronomy was awakened during his visits at the university of Leiden where in 1961 and 1968 he spent two years as visiting professor to work with Professors van Oort and van de Hulst on astronomical issues. In 1970, he went to the university of New York in Albany, before in 1975 he followed a call from Henk van de Hulst to establish and direct the Laboratory for Astrophysics at the university of Leiden. Since that time, he complemented his theoretical studies on the chemical evolution of interstellar dust by experiments, for which he constructed a sophisticated system simulating ISM conditions. His work was rewarded when his model of comets based on interstellar dust substantially contributed to the interpretation of the Giotto data obtained from comet Halley fly-by.
Mayo Greenberg soon extended his studies from the evolution of interstellar dust and the composition of comets to questions on the origin of life. This was, when I became acquainted with Mayo and his work. In 1983, he joined us, a group of biologists and biophysicists, to make use of the new opportunities offered by experimentation in Earth orbit. Together with Horst Becker, Klaus Dose and Horst-Dieter Mennigmann, we proposed to the European Space Agency an "Exobiological Unit" to use the unique space environment for studying questions referring to the upper boundary of the biosphere, to interplanetary transfer of life, and the organic chemistry in interstellar dust grains, respectively, which finally materialized with a 9 month mission of the European Retrievable Carrier EURECA in 1992. I will never forget the stimulating and inspiring discussions we had during the preparatory phase of the "Exobiological unit", not to forget the splendid hospitality at the Greenbergs, when the group met in Leiden. On Mayo's initiative, we started to develop a follow-on project which would provide both, extraterrestrial UV radiation and extremely low temperatures. EURECA was just a first stepping stone in this direction. Others have to complete the work.
Education and popularization of science was very much emphasized by Mayo Greenberg. This engagement becomes evident by the enormous number of students from all over the world who were trained in his Laboratory of Astrophysics and received their Ph.D. there. From his more than 300 publications, at least 50 appeared in the last 5 years when he was already in the high seventies. Mayo was also Director of the annual N.A.T.O. Advanced Study Institute on space chemistry and related topics in Erice, Sicily, and he has translated his work to the public though a variety of interviews for news papers, journals and on television. With his last public outreach, the article "the secrets of stardust" in the December 2000 issue of Scientific American, written by a great pioneer in astrobiology, he says good bye to us.
Gerda Horneck
ISSOL Secretary
Correspondence address
- Oaxaca-ISSOL'02
- Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, UNAM
- Dept. de Quimica
- Apartado Postal 70-543,
- Ciudad Universitaria, D.F.
- 04510 Mexico
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- Telephone 525/ 622 4674,
- 525/ 6224707-231, and
- 525/ 622 4707-223
-
- Fax 525/ 616 2233
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- e-mail: issol@nuclecu.unam.mx
"Bioastronomy 2002: Life Among the Stars" Great Barrier Reef, Australia, July 8-12, 2002
Local Organizing Committee Chair: Carol Oliver
All information available at: http://bioastronomy.uws.edu.au
Goldschmidt Conference: Davos, Switzerland from the August 18-23, 2002
Two special sessions on exobiology at the 2002 Goldschmidt Conference
The 2002 Goldschmidt Conference for geochemistry will be held in Davos, Switzerland from the 18th to the 23rd August. The organizers are planning this conference as a large, modestly priced meeting in a beautiful and geologically interesting location. The meeting is expected to attract about 1,500 participants and will be the biggest geochemistry conference ever organized. The organizers intend to cover the full range of current cutting-edge research topics in geochemistry and cosmochemistry.
A special session entitled "Source of organic compounds on the early Earth and other solar system bodies" is convened by Andre Brack and Gerda Horneck. The different possible sources of prebiotic organic molecules will be discussed, i.e. the primitive atmosphere, deep-sea hydrothermal systems and the delivery of extraterrestrial material. Whether the extraterrestrial grains bear witness to the interstellar organic chemistry is still unknown. Information about the different steps including interstellar medium, comets, planetary atmospheres and the Earth will help to establish the global ISM/comets/planets ecosystem from an exobiology point of view.
Another special session, chaired by Jeff Bada, Antonio Lazcano and Frances Westall will focus on "The pre-RNA world and the origin of life." Despite the enormous gap in our understanding of how, when and where the transition from purely abiotic chemistry to biochemistry took place on the primitive Earth, it is generally believed that early life consisted of self-replicating RNA molecules. However, there must have been some kind of simpler entity before RNA life. Did the primitive life form use "informational molecules" or was it based on "metabolically self-sustaining" chemical reactions?
Contributions to this session from interested colleagues are warmly solicited. Unfortunately, the organizers are not able to provide any financial support for travelling and lodging expenses.
More at: http://www.goldschmidt-conference.com/2002/gold2002/
34th COSPAR Scientific Assembly (Second World Space Congress), Houston, Texas, USA, October 10-19, 2002.
The Call for Papers/Announcement appeared in the August 2001 issue of the COSPAR Information Bulletin. All Assembly information, including preliminary program, registration and accommodation forms, will be included in this issue. Note that no second announcement will be sent although all information, as well as the updated program, will be posted as it becomes available and will be accessible by clicking on the underlined words above. For more detailed information about certain items including hotels, access, etc. please visit the site of the Local Organizing Committee http://www.aiaa.org/wsc2002/
See also the COSPAR web site: http://cospar.itodys.jussieu.fr/Meetings/meetings.htm
OOL@home - Origin of Life at home !!!
The origin of life might have lasted millions of years and happened on a planetary scale. These time and space constraints may form major obstacles for doing relevant test-tube experiments. An alternative is in silico experiments, i.e. computer simulations to test origin of life scenarios. Such a rationale has been employed in investigating problems such as the accretion of the solar system, the formation of stars and galaxies and even the origin of the universe. As in other cases, and even more so because of the complexities of random bio-organic chemistry, massive computing power is needed. While using parallel supercomputers is an option, an exciting alternative is for thousands of home computer owners from around the world to allow the use of their joint idle CPU time. This idea has already been implemented for projects involving drug design, or the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI@home). The origin of life is exciting for scientists and lay people alike, and is thus highly suitable for such approach. As a first step, we propose to implement this global computing to the Amphiphile Graded Autocatalysis Replication Domain (A-GARD) model (EMBO Reports, 1, 217, PNAS 97, 4112), a computational embodiment of the 'lipid world' scenario. We anticipate that the infrastructure created will benefit the entire prebiotic chemistry community, and would be delighted to collaborate on this with others.
Barak Shenhav (barak.Shenhav@weizmann.ac.il)
Doron Lancet (doron.lancet@weizmann.ac.il)
