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Project Reports

• Planetary Biology, Evolution, and Intelligence

  The results of a two and a half day workshop on the topic of the Habitability of Planets Orbiting M Stars was published recently. Thirty scientists from nineteen institutions in the US and UK participated. Thirteen of the participants were from six other NAI Teams

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 7.1 7.2

• Module 1: The Building Blocks of Life

  Module 1 concerns the study of Astrochemistry and how it may have contributed to the development of living systems.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 3.2 4.3

• Adaptation to Salinity in Microbial Communities

  The potential relevance of evaporative lakes as analogs for the late stage hydrosphere of Mars (see results of Manga and collaborators in the UC Berkeley team) is well established (e.g., Benison and Laclair 2003, Astrobiology v.3).

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1 3.2 4.1 5.3 7.2

• Early Metabolic Pathways

  We continue to employ both experimental and computational approaches to investigate the evolutionary origins of functional macromolecules. We conducted the first laboratory evolution of a completely new non-biological enzyme that joins two fragments of RNA into a single strand (it acts as an RNA ligase).

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.2 3.4

• From Proto-Metabolism to the RNA World

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 3.2

• Project 4. Prebiotic Molecular Selection and Organization

   

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1 3.2 3.4 4.1 7.1

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

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.2 5.1 5.3

• Evolution of Abiotic Environments to Ecosystems

  Field work in 2006-2007 included trips to the high Arctic and to the Precambrian Canadian Shield. Study sites were selected on the basis of temperature and contrasting levels of hydrogen. Study sites included environments impacted by permafrost and environments at latitudes south of persistent permafrost. The level of free hydrogen gas is temperature-dependent and appears to be an important controlling factor on microbial processes.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 3.3 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 7.1 7.2

• Project 7. Astrobiotechnology

  Co-Investigator Andrew Steele and colleagues have continued to develop the Modular Assays for Solar System Exploration (MASSE) concept, which uses microfluidic technology to incubate a DNA or protein microarray. This year has been a milestone in the use of this technology in space with involvement in two missions, one to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the STS 116 shuttle launch, the other a Biopan low earth orbit exposure mission that will launch in September.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 4.2 5.3 6.2 7.1

• Membrane RNAs

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.2 3.3 3.4

• Philosophical Issues in Astrobiology

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.2 3.4 4.1 5.1 5.2

• Laser Mass Spectrometry for Planetary Analog and in Situ Chemical Analyses

  Work on laser time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF-MS) techniques continues at JHU/APL in collaboration with the Goddard Center for Astrobiology (GCA) team and external partners.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 7.1

• Origin and Evolution of Organics

  This research is part of the NASA Goddard Astrobiology Node. Our outgassing models predict the composition of first-formed atmospheres on the Earth and other rocky planets in our own and other solar systems formed from chondritic material. Chondritic material forms in any protoplanetary disk with solar or near-solar composition.

  ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1 1.2 3.1 3.2