LAB affiliate Sara Walker will discuss universal principles of life in her talk "Inferring the 'Laws of Life'Â at a Planetary Scale" as part of the Origins of Life Speaker Series, hosted by the University of Chicago's Physical Sciences Division. Tune in from 12:30-2:00 ET on October 22 for her seminar--you can find more information, plus the link to register, here!
LAB postdoc Natalie Grefenstette was a guest on Complexity, a podcast by the Santa Fe Institute, where she discussed her path to astrobiology, various ways to abstract our search for life to make it more agnostic, and considerations for studying chemical complexity and polymer detection. Listen to the full episode or access the transcript here.
Image description: Infrared image of stars at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
LAB Co-I Chris Kempes was interviewed by Quanta Magazine to discuss the applications of information theory to our biological definition of individuality. Chris mentions how generalizable and quantifiable conceptions of individuality could help make our search for life and our study of the origins of life more agnostic. Read the full article here!
Image description: A winter storm is visible off the east coast of the United States, and cities are illuminated across the country. Weather events, like the storm visible here, could also be described and understood using the individuality theory discussed in the article.
Image Credit: NASA/NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using VIIRS day-night band data from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership