- Friday 29 February 2008
- 8.00pm-9.00pm
This discourse will address the question, ‘What is life?' and may even produce a satisfactory answer. Life has been around for a long time. The age of the Earth is four and half billion years but there are signs in the oldest rocks on Earth that the environment could have supported life four billion years ago. There was almost certainly life on Earth by three and a half billion years ago, but for at least three billion years the world's population consisted only of microbes. Signs of past life are hard to find since most materials on Earth are recycled, especially organic matter, which is re-used by other organisms. Amazingly, the exhaled breath of life may be one of the most durable and abundant signs of past organisms and the key to finding life on Mars. In a demonstration-rich discourse, Prof Coleman will attempt to prove this point and others. He will then show how laboratory analytical instruments have to be miniaturised dramatically (by factors of a thousand) and adapted for flight to Mars.
Venue: The Royal Institution
Tickets are free to Ri Full Members, £6 Associate Members and £9 non-members