On Tuesday, November 10th, from 4PM Pacific/7PM Eastern (November 11th, 9AM JST/11 AM AEDT), the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Brendan Burns, microbial ecologist and evolutionary biologist at The University of New South Wales, and Dr. Masaru Nobu, biologist and bioinformatician working as a senior researcher at JAMSTEC’s Institute for Extra-cutting-edge Science and Technology Avant-garde Research (X-star).
The meeting room can be found here.
Read MoreOn Tuesday, October 13th, at 8AM Pacific/11AM Eastern, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Emil Ruff, microbial ecologist at the University of Bremen, Germany and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, and Dr. Carolina Fernandes Moreira de Carvalho, postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zürich.
The meeting room can be found here.
Read MoreOn September 15th at 11AM ET/8AM PT, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome ECC member Val Karavaeva, PhD student at the Genome Evolution and Ecology Group (GEEG) at the University of Vienna. Their work concerns microbial bioenergetics, with a focus on evolution of cofactor biosynthesis enzymes, in particular tetrapyrroles, such as cobalamin (vitamin B12) and heme.
The meeting room can be found here.
Read MoreA turning point in the history of life occurred when populations of self-replicating molecules crossed the Darwinian Threshold to cellularity. This most consequential of evolutionary transitions opened the door to the evolution of biocomplexity at all scales, from molecules to ecosystems. The hallmark of this transition was the enclosure of self-replicating molecular systems within a boundary, one that enabled natural selection to foster diversification driven by biochemical and morphological innovation within and between compartments.
Compartmentalization is a principle by which all living systems are organized today, from colocalizing proteins and small molecules into separate phases to dividing labor within and among cells. We will explore how biology has used compartmentalization to innovate across scales from condensates to communities.
Read MoreOn August 11th, 9AM Pacific/12PM Eastern, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Sara Imari Walker, Deputy Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Professor at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University (ASU) and External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, and Dr. L. Felipe Benites, postdoctoral researcher at Arizona State University.
The meeting room can be found here.
The meeting recording can be found here.
Read MoreOn July 7th, 8AM Pacific/11AM Eastern, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Rika Anderson, Associate Professor of Biology at Carleton College, and Alia Sanger, PhD candidate in the Geomicrobiology lab at McGill University.
The meeting room can be found here.
The recording of the seminar can be found here.
Read MoreOn April 7th at 8AM Pacific/11AM Eastern, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Mary-Beth Wilhelm and Chanel Vidal. Dr. Wilhelm is an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center in California conducting research on biomarker preservation in Mars analog environments, and Chanel is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Geological Science program in School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University and a member of Dr. Everett Shock’s Group Exploring Organic Processes in Geochemistry (GEOPIG) Lab.
You can join the meeting here.
Read MoreOn March 11th, 8AM PT/11AM ET, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Caleb Scharf, an astrobiologist whose research explores the formation, evolution, and habitability of planets, with particular emphasis on the origins and persistence of life.
The meeting room can be found here.
The recording of this seminar can be viewed here.
Read MoreOn February 11th, 8AM Pacific/11AM Eastern, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Martina Preiner, head of a Max Planck research group at the Microcosm Earth Center, and Oskari Lehtinen, PhD candidate at the Microcosm Earth Center.
The zoom link can be found here.
The recording of the first talk can be found here.
Read MoreOn January 6th at 8AM Pacific/11AM Eastern, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Ilya Bobrovskiy and Dr. Tharika Liyanage. Dr. Ilya Bobrovskiy leads a research group at MARUM that seeks to deconvolve the early record of eukaryotic evolution using organic geochemistry. Dr. Tharika Liyanage is a geobiologist focusing on the missing links between the evolution of microbial life and their fossilized lipid biomolecules in the geological record.
The meeting link can be found here.
Read MoreOn December 9th, 4PM PST/7PM EST, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Prof. Gergely Szöllősi, who leads the Model-Based Evolutionary Genomics Unit at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (Japan), and Dr. Kai Tong, who is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Boston University.
The meeting room can be found here.
The recording can be found here.
Read MoreOn November 4th, 8AM PDT/11AM EDT, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Michael Kipp, an Assistant Professor of Geochemistry in the Division of Earth & Climate Sciences at Duke University, and Dr. Chenyi Tu, a postdoctoral fellow of the NASA Postdoctoral Program at Duke University.
Meeting Link: https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96506145424
Recording: https://youtu.be/IbeJo5eOC_Q
Read MoreOn October 8th, 8AM PDT/11AM EDT, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Greg Fournier, Associate Professor of Geobiology at MIT. He studies the deep evolutionary history of life, applying molecular clocks and phylogenetics to uncover how Earth’s earliest organisms emerged, evolved, and reshaped the planet over billions of years.
Meeting Link:https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96506145424
The link to the recording of his talk can be found here.
Read MoreOn September 11th, 8AM PDT/11AM EDT, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. Jennifer Macalady, professor in the Department of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University and director of the International Geobiology Course, and Dr. Alta Howells, a Research Associate in the Department of Geological Sciences at University of Colorado, Boulder and a staff scientist with Blue Marble Space Institute of Sciences.
Meeting Link:https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96506145424
The recording of Dr. Macalady’s talk can be found here.
Read MoreOn August 5th, 8am PDT/11am EDT, the LIFE RCN is excited to welcome Dr. James Sáenz, a microbiologist, synthetic biologist and Group Leader of the B CUBE Center for Molecular Bioengineering at Technical University Dresden, and Dr. Srishti Kashyap, a geomicrobiologist currently working as a Research Associate at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Meeting Link:https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96506145424
The link to the recording of Dr. Sáenz’s talk can be found here.
Read MoreOn July 8th, 8am PDT/11am EDT, the LIFE RCN will be excited to host Dr. Eloi Camprubi, an Assistant Professor of Astrobiochemistry at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), and Myrine Barreiro-Arevalo, a 4th year PhD candidate at UTRGV in the Mathematics and Statistics with Interdisciplinary Applications degree program.
Meeting Link:https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96506145424
The link to a recording of Dr. Camprubi’s talk can be found here.
Read MoreOn June 10th, 2025, at 8AM PDT/11AM EDT, the LIFE RCN will be excited to introduce Dr. Rogier Braakman, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an adjunct scientist at The Ecosystems Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory!
Meeting Link:https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96506145424
Read MoreThe meeting will take place from 1 to 4 September 2025 in the picturesque medieval city of Nördlingen , which is situated inside the world-famous Ries crater in southern Germany. It aims to cover the role of meteorite and comets impacts in the formation of Earth, its atmosphere and the evolution of life. The registration deadline is June 30th!
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