Origins of Life: Meteorites and Molecular Mysteries
This chapter explores the connection between meteorite dust, ancient stromatolites, and the origins of life on Earth. It discusses historic theories, such as Darwin's 'warm little pond,' and highlights recent advancements in understanding prebiotic chemistry, particularly the role of wet-dry cycling in life’s emergence. The conversation also touches on nanopore sequencing technology and its potential to revolutionize our understanding of early biological processes.
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I got to hang out with Dr. Bruce Damer recently on the beach at Kaplankaya in Turkey. Bruce is an amazing scientist, a humble guy. Who has spent his whole career trying to figure out how did life begin on Earth?
He and his co-conspirator Dr. David Deamer have figured out something that not only works as a hypothesis for how life began on Earth – but they’ve been able to reproduce it – in hot Springs.
Bruce is also a brave pioneer of using psychedelics to change his own mind, to change his own life, and to help him with insights for scientific discovery. He has also since created The Center for MINDS, which is an organization devoted to advancing scientific discovery. In part, by helping folks use psychedelics and learn about using psychedelics to go places their minds just don’t want to go otherwise.
This is a bit controversial and has been taboo for my entire life. I think it’s very important area to research. I really appreciate the people who are coming out – risking their own careers and the backlash of bias that people have – to help us figure out what’s possible with this frontier in science. Bruce has really opened up to share his own life experience with you guys and I’m really thankful to him for that.
BIOTA Institute Director and Chief Scientist Dr. Bruce Damer has spent his life pursuing two great questions: how did life on Earth begin, and how can we give that life (and ourselves) a sustainable pathway into the cosmos? He conceived of BIOTA in 1996 and guided it through its first two decades of evolution in which it hosted four conferences and a podcast (hosted by Tom Barbalet) on the use of digital spaces to simulate evolution and natural systems. A decade of scientific research with his collaborator Prof. David Deamer at the UC Santa Cruz Department of Biomolecular Engineering resulted in the Hot Spring Hypothesis for an Origin of Life published in the journal Astrobiology in 2019 . In 2021, with growing global collaboration around the hypothesis, he determined that BIOTA was ready for its new mission: raising grants for students and young scientists to test this scenario for life’s origins and explore its implications for humanity. Dr. Damer also has a long career working with NASA on mission simulation and design and recently co-developed a spacecraft to utilize resources from asteroids. He is an avid collector of vintage computing hardware in his DigiBarn Computer Museum and enjoys a fine life with his partner Kathryn Lukas, 3 cats and one adorable chihuahua in their Gandalf-inspired house high up in the Santa Cruz redwoods.
