NAI
2014 Annual Science Report
Pennsylvania State University
Reporting | SEP 2013 – DEC 2014
Biosignatures of Ancient Rocks - Hedges Group
Project Summary
Our work involves the design, assembly, and release to the public of a tree of life calibrated to geologic time (timetree). It is needed by astrobiologists to help determine the source of biomarkers for the presence of life in the geologic record.
Project Progress
The NAI research of Blair Hedges mainly concerns the refinement of the tree of life scaled to geologic time (i.e., the timetree of life). This information helps to relate chemical and geological biomarkers in the rock record to organisms that may have produced those biomarkers. In turn this provides a better understanding of biosphere evolution, and identifying possibly universal mechanisms and pathways applicable to life on other planets. The Hedges group has now contributed a review on the origin of life for Oxford Bibliographies in Evolutionary Biology.
Publications
-
Hedges, S. B. (n.d.). The Origin of Life. Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets. doi:10.1093/obo/9780199941728-0045
-
PROJECT INVESTIGATORS:
-
PROJECT MEMBERS:
S. Blair Hedges
Project Investigator
Tiffany Cloud
Collaborator
Sudhir Kumar
Collaborator
Lee Kump
Collaborator
Julie Marin
Collaborator
-
RELATED OBJECTIVES:
Objective 3.3
Origins of energy transduction
Objective 3.4
Origins of cellularity and protobiological systems
Objective 4.1
Earth's early biosphere.
Objective 4.2
Production of complex life.
Objective 7.1
Biosignatures to be sought in Solar System materials
Objective 7.2
Biosignatures to be sought in nearby planetary systems