nai

Project Reports

• Re-Tracing Steps Towards a Habitable World: The Biogeochemical Evolution of Sulfur on the Early Earth.

  In the last year, we have reported work on the origin of the crust from analysis of rare isotopes in Hadean zircons from Western Australia, established the ages of the oldest and best preserved sediments in Canada at Inukjuak (Quebec) and completed our analysis of multiple sulfur isotopes from the transition from an oxygen-poor to oxygen-rich surface across the Paleoproterozoic.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 6.1

• Identifying Microbial Life at Crustal Rock-Water Interfaces

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 4.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 7.1

• Functional Genomics of Thioredoxins in Halobacterium Sp. NRC-1

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.2 5.1 5.3

• Origin of Multicellularity and Complex Land-Based Ecosystem

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 4.2 5.2

• Molecular Survey of Microbial Diversity in Hypersaline Ecosystems

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.4 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 7.1

• Biological Potential of Mars

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 2.1

• Membrane RNAs

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.2 3.3 3.4

• Formation and Evolution of Habitable Planets

  The main focus of our research has dealt with the formation and evolution of
  potentially habitable planets in a variety of astronomical settings. In the
  past year, we have extended previous models of terrestrial planet growth in
  several new directions.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1

• Investigations of the Birth of Stars and Planets

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2

• The Impact of Atmospheric Particles on Life

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 2.1 2.2 4.3

• From Proto-Metabolism to the RNA World

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 3.2

• Philosophical Issues in Astrobiology

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.2 3.4 4.1 5.1 5.2

• Understanding the Microbial Ecology of Geologically-Based Chemolithoautotrophic Communities

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 5.3