
Rock and Roil: Meteorites Hitting Early Earth's Oceans May Have Helped Spawn Life
Did heat, pressure and carbon from meteorite impacts create biological precursors?

Rock and Roil: Meteorites Hitting Early Earth's Oceans May Have Helped Spawn Life
Did heat, pressure and carbon from meteorite impacts create biological precursors?

Triple Helix: Designing a New Molecule of Life
Peptide nucleic acid, a synthetic hybrid of protein and DNA, could form the basis of a new class of drugs—and of artificial life unlike anything found in nature


Cassini spacecraft searches for signs of life on Saturn's moon Enceladus

Filed Notes—Life in Old Lava
Searching for microfossils inside igneous rocks

Were Meteorites the Origin of Life on Earth?
DNA building blocks found in meteorite took shape in deep space

Martian Meteorite Harbors Life's Building Blocks
Organic molecules inside space rock were probably the result of plain old chemistry

Are There (Microbial) Aliens On Earth?
In this episode, theoretical physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist Paul Davies ponders the question of whether life originated more than once on earth, and how to find examples of a second origin if it did. Plus we'll test your knowledge of some recent science in the news. Websites mentioned on this podcast include: www.sciam.com/sciammag or tinyurl.com/3b8voo; www.beyond.asu.edu; www.sciam.com/sciambody; www.mayoclinic.com

50, 100 & 150 Years Ago: Strangeness Theory, Alien Evidence and Sensible Fish

The Encyclopedia of Life; and the End of John Horgan's Pessimism
In this episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist and writer E.O. Wilson talks to award-winning journalist John Horgan about the Encyclopedia of Life project and finding common ground between science and religion. And Horgan, the Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ, talks about his research into whether war might someday become a thing of the past. Plus we'll test your knowedge of some recent science in the news. Websites mentioned on this episode include www.eol.org; bloggingheads.tv; www.cfa.harvard.edu/~tcox/localgroup; arxiv.org/abs/0705.1170

Extrasolar Planets Plants May Come in Bouquet of Colors
If there are plants on other planets, they would likely evolve to take advantage of the most abundant light rays reaching them--which might make them other than green.

Remember a Previous Life? Maybe You Have a Bad Memory
Familiarity with an idea makes some people more likely to forget where it came from—and confuse fact with fiction

A Simpler Origin for Life
The sudden appearance of a large self-copying molecule such as RNA was exceedingly improbable. Energy-driven networks of small molecules afford better odds as the initiators of life.