EON Activities – EON Project

The EON-ELSI Winter School: Interdisciplinarity at its finest

Tony Jia — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 04:14:07 +0000

Many institutes and organizations host short, intensive courses, in which students come together for a short time to learn a particular topic or technique. This is a great opportunity for students to either study a specific topic rigorously, or to learn something in a field orthogonal to one’s own. Recently, we had the opportunity to design and hold such a course, sponsored by both EON and ELSI and held on the ELSI campus at Tokyo Institute of Technology. Now, because of the sheer number of similar types of these courses that exist around the world and in all different disciplines, we definitely wanted to make something different. Something that would stand out from the others. Hence was born the EON-ELSI Winter School.

As members of the organizing committee of the Winter School, our task was to design a two week course, completely from scratch, that covered the important topics in the entire breadth of the field of Earth-Life Science. How could we make this school different and stand out from the others? What could make this winter school unique?

Active learning in the classroom with old-fashioned clickers

Photo Credit: Nerissa Escanlar

First of all, since the field of Earth-Life science contains so many different research subfields, we wanted to make sure that the Winter School hit on one major point that could differentiate it from the others: interdisciplinarity. ELSI is an inter- and multidisciplinary research institute that focuses on solving important questions in Earth-Life Science. These questions cannot generally be answered with a simple single-discipline approach; rather, an interdisciplinary approach with teams composed of researchers from various backgrounds is required, something that ELSI is uniquely positioned to do given the range of its researcher’s expertise. Because of this, we did not have to go far to find instructors with the breadth of knowledge we wanted for this Winter School. Of course, it’s certainly true that the final contributor/instructor list did contain researchers from various external organizations both domestic and international, a large majority of the instructors were from ELSI. (And again, thanks so much for all of the instructors who took time out of their busy schedules to contribute to the Winter School, especially those who travelled a long way!)

Exoplanetary database project

Photo Credit: Nerissa Escanlar

Additionally, very often in classroom situations what is presented during a seminar or a lecture, although interesting and important, may not be easily directly applied to someone’s research. Thus, ideas presented in the classroom may end up passively ruminating in the corner of one’s brain. Instead, things that are presented in an active way in the classroom, either through participatory learning or through practical demonstrations, are more likely to be incorporated into a student’s active thinking. Because of this, we wanted to incorporate hands-on projects and tutorials (in a wide variety of fields, of course) that the students could personally learn and do in a short period of time. This way, the students will have learned and produced something tangible by the end of the session.

Studying the geology near the Kannawa Fault

Photo Credit: Tomohiro Mochizuki

Finally, us researchers at ELSI are always treated to something that can’t be easily accessed by those at international institutions: Japan. Japan is such a geologically-diverse nation, we knew we wanted to incorporate many different aspects of local geology that students couldn’t get anywhere else. And what better way than to see these things up close? Thus, we designed a short field trip for the students to go and explore some unique local geological features. Our local field experts were able to show the students faults, hot springs, geysers, plate boundaries, volcanoes, and much, much more, while in the classroom we were treated to special seminars by researchers with expertise in local geology, local gaseous volcano disasters, and even with a visit to the Tokyo Tech Archean rock museum!

Taking microbial samples from the hot spring at Mine Onsen

Photo Credit: Kazumi Yoshiya

With these major goals of emphasizing interdisciplinarity, hands-on tutorials, as well as the unique geology of Japan, we hoped that students around the world would be excited by this opportunity to really experience the entire breadth of Earth-Life science. The response was overwhelming. We received 227 applications, far more than we had initially expected, from all 6 populated continents (but we even had an application from a student who does research in Antarctica!) and also a gender ratio of about 50% women and 50% men! In the end, we chose students who we thought would really embrace the idea of an interdisciplinary school with relevance to applying new ideas to their own research, but also were willing to contribute something from their own research to apply it to other students’ research fields.

Even the instructors were excited to learn about something new!

Photo Credit: Nerissa Escanlar

In the end, the students who did end up coming were a really diverse group from all different research fields (life sciences, Earth sciences, physical sciences, and even science education!) and institutes based in many different countries (Japan, USA, France, Germany, UK, Brazil, South Korea, India, Australia, and Thailand; this doesn’t even count the fact that the students from some of these institutes were themselves already from a different country). They all really embraced the spirit of the Winter School, as they all participated and engaged fully in the field portion, the tutorials and projects, and the wide variety of seminars. It’s such an interesting experience to see a biologist ask really hard questions about how the Earth’s mantle moves, a geologist give it their all to study the metagenome of an underwater hydrothermal system, or a researcher who normally simulates planetary formation go into the lab for the first time and grow bacteria isolated from their own nose!

Many engaging discussions between the instructors and students took place after the seminars

Photo Credit: Nerissa Escanlar

Now as the students return to their home institutions, we hope that what they have gained is a deeper understanding about the importance of interdisciplinarity to answering important questions in modern science, and especially the field of Earth-Life science. The international network of researchers they have cultivated in just two weeks will be a great resource for each of them in the future, not only due to the breadth of research expertise, but also the unique cultural insights that each person was able to contribute and the international friendships each was able to cultivate. Hopefully, they will all have ample opportunities in the future to collaborate with one another and we all can’t wait to see what the future holds for these students.

Photo Credit: Natsumi Noda

Photo Credit: Nerissa Escanlar

We’re all waiting for the next edition of the winter school! Until then!

In the meantime, check out the official #ELSIWS Storify for a tweet-based recap!

EON Holds Third Annual Meeting

EON ELSI — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 06:51:45 +0000

EON recently held its third annual meeting in Odawara January 5th-6th, 2018.

The EON meeting in Odawara was attended by 55 international scientists who are part of the collaborative network, including 12 of EON’s international Post-Doctoral Scholars, who all gave presentations of the research they conducted during their tenure. EON Scholars split their time during their 2-year research appointments between ELSI and an external center. External centers include the Carnegie Institution of Washington, NASA Goddard and NASA Ames Space Flight Research Centers (USA), Cambridge University (UK), CalTech (USA), Emory University (USA), the University of Southern California (USA), the University of Vienna (Austria), the University of Southern Denmark, the University of California, San Diego (USA) and the ISIR, Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France), the Rutgers University (USA).

Also in attendance were EON’s Global Science Coordinators, who help recruit members and publicize EON as an institution, and include scientists from NASA headquarters, Columbia and Harvard Universities and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Finally, EON advisory board member Marcelo Glaser (Dartmouth University) presented the keynote talk for the meeting.

For more details please visit:

(for English)

http://www.elsi.jp/en/news/event/2018/02/EON_annual_meeting_20180202.html

(for Japanese)

http://www.elsi.jp/ja/news/event/2018/02/EON_annual_meeting_20180202.html

An article regarding this meeting was also published on the website of Tokyo Institute of Technology.

(for English)

https://www.titech.ac.jp/english/news/2018/040605.html

(for Japanese)

https://www.titech.ac.jp/news/2018/040603.html

Long-term Visitors and Visitors supported by EON

EON ELSI — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 05:10:00 +0000

Long-Term Visitor Programme

(Including Graduate Interns and Global Science Coordinators)

EON provides funds for visitors to stay at ELSI for longer periods (usually, but not exclusively, one month or more). This has had a dramatic effect on the interdisciplinary research atmosphere at ELSI, as well as being one of the core ways in which our network is built up and maintained.

Name	Country of residence	Home institution	Host	Period of visit
Norman Packard	US	Proto Life	Nathaniel Virgo	2015-04-13 to 2015-05-01
Norman Packard	US	Proto Life	Nathaniel Virgo	2015-08-24 to 2015-09-11
Al Crumbliss	US	Duke University	Eric Smith	2015-09-17 to 2015-11-16
Matthew Egbert	New Zealand	University of Auckland	Nathaniel Virgo	2016-02-04 to 2016-03-09
Norman Packard	US	Proto Life	Nathaniel Virgo	2016-02-25 to 2016-05-20
Iuliia Myrgorodska	France	University of NiceSophia Antipolis	Jim Cleaves	2016-02-29 to 2016-03-25
Joseph Moran	France	University of Strasbourg	Eric Smith	2016-04-11 to 2016-04-22
Eugenio Simoncini	Italy	INAF – National Institute for Astrophysics	Nathaniel Virgo	2016-10-03 to 2016-10-21
Omer Markovitch	Israel	Newcasle University School of Computing Science	Nathaniel Virgo	2016-10-14 to 2017-03-13
Sudha Rajamani	India	Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune	Yutetsu Kuruma	2016-11-15 to 2016-11-29
Alex Baccouche	France	Universite Paris Descartes, ED MTCI	Nathanael Aubert-Kato/	2017-01-04 to 2017-03-30

			Yusuke Tsukatani
Ajith Harish	Sweden	Uppsala University, Sweden	Kosuke Fujishima	2017-01-05 to 2017-02-06
Thomas Kaiser	US	Emory University	Chris Butch	2017-01-08 to 2017-01-20
Eran Agmon	US	Columbia University	Nathaniel Virgo	2017-01-10 to 2017-01-28
Milena Popović	US	NASA Ames Research Center	Kosuke Fujishima	2017-01-10 to 2017-01-29
Norman Packard	US	Proto Life	Nathaniel Virgo	2017-03-13 to 2017-04-07
John McCaskill	Germany	Ruhr-University-Bochum	Nathaniel Virgo	2017-03-14 to 2017-03-30
Lukas Straczek	Germany	Ruhr-University-Bochum	Nathaniel Virgo	2017-03-16 to 2017-03-30
Tommaso Fraccia	Italy	Università Telematica San Raffaele di Roma, Italy	Jim Cleaves	2017-03-22 to 2017-04-11
Timothy Jolis	US	Albany Medical Center	Jim Cleaves	2017-03-29 to 2017-04-05
Randall Collins	US	University of Pennsylvania	Piet Hut	2017-04-07 to 2017-04-19
David Fike	US	Washington University in St. Louis	Shawn McGlynn	2017-04-07 to 2017-06-10
Sara Waller	US	Montana State University	Shawn McGlynn	2017-04-10 to 2017-04-14
Eiko Ikegami	US	New School University New School for Social Research	Piet Hut	2017-04-10 to 2017-04-13
James Dyke	UK	University of Southampton	Nathaniel Virgo	2017-04-13 to 2017-07-31
Richard Gillams	UK	University of Southampton	Jakob Andersen	2017-04-19 to 2017-07-05
Eiko Ikegami	US	New School University New School for Social Research	Eric Smith	2017-04-26 to 2017-04-29
Natalie Grefenstette	UK	UCL	Jim Cleaves	2017-05-12 to 2017-06-16
Bakhtiyor Rasulev	US	North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND USA	Jim Cleaves	2017-05-16 to 2017-05-30
Sudha Rajamani	India	IISER Pune	Yutetsu Kuruma	2017-05-22 to 2017-06-08
Marc Kaufman	US	NASA NExSS	John Hernlund	2017-05-31 to 2017-06-16
Jorge Campos Bravo	Mexico	National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)	Nathaniel Virgo	2017-06-01 to 2017-07-30
Tom Froese	Mexico	National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)	Nathaniel Virgo	2017-06-01 to 2017-07-30
Kuhan Chandru	Malaysia	NA	Irena Mamajanov	2017-06-09 to 2017-08-28
Guillaume Gronoff	US	Science System and Application Inc.	Albert Fahrenbach	2017-06-14 to 2017-06-30
Vladimir Airapetian	US	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center	Albert Fahrenbach	2017-06-15 to 2017-06-29
Markus Meringer	Germany	DLR	Jim Cleaves	2017-06-15 to 2017-06-30
Gael Choblet	France	CNRS – Universite de Nantes	Marine Lasbleis	2017-06-26 to 2017-08-07
Maximino Aldana	Mexico	National Autonomous University of Mexico	Jim Cleaves	2017-07-03 to 2017-07-31
Daniel Polani	UK	University of Hertfordshire	Piet Hut　(Olaf)	2017-07-04 to 2017-07-24
Timothy Jolis	US	Stanford University	Katie Petrie Shawn	2017-07-05 to 2017-07-13
Jordi Faraudo	Spain	Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona ( ICMAB-CSIC ) Campus de la UAB, Bellaterra, Barcelona (Spain)	Jim Cleaves	2017-07-07 to 2017-08-03
Miguel A. Fuentes-Cabrera	US	Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences	Chris Butch	2017-07-10 to 2017-07-28
Wei Liu	China	Nanjing University of Science and Technology	Jim Cleaves	2017-07-18 to 2017-07-28
Steve Vance	US	California Institute of Technoloty	Nathaniel Virgo	2017-07-24 to 2017-07-28
Andrew Fleming	US	Dow Jones / The Wall Street Journal	Piet Hut	2017-07-24 to 2017-07-28
Josh Einsle	UK	University of Cambridge	Joe Kirschvink	2017-07-31 to 2017-09-06
Sheref S. Mansy	Italy	University of Trento	Irena Mamajanov Katie Petrie	2017-08-14 to 2017-08-30
Soichiro (So) Tsuda	UK	University of Glasgow	Tomohiro Mochizuki	2017-08-16 to 2017-09-01
Alex Baccouche	France	None	Nakagawa 9/1 – 9/10 Cleaves 9/11-10/14 Nathaniel 10/15-11/15	2017-08-31 to 2017-11-14
Marc Kaufman	US	Science Writer	EON	2017-09-01 to 2017-10-13
Mike Toillion	US	NASA Astrobiology Institute	ELSI	2017-09-12 to 2017-09-30
Markus Meringer	Germany	DLR	Jim Cleaves	2017-09-25 to 2017-10-14
Melissa Ilardo	Denmark	University of Copenhagen	Jim Cleaves	2017-10-01 to 2017-10-15

In addition we provide a similar service for graduate students to visit ELSI and work with ELSI and EON scientists, providing boosts to the careers of young researchers. (See table overleaf.)

Name	Country of residence	Home institution	Host	Period of visit
Farshid Jafarpour	US	University of Illinois	Piet Hut	2015-07-02 to 2015-07-31
Jade Checlair	US	University of Chicago	Shigeru Ida	2016-07-28 to 2016-08-31
Matteo Monti	Italy	University of Bologna	Piet Hut	2016-08-10 to 2016-09-01
Woo Je Chang	Korea	Seoul National University	Shawn McGlynn	2016-08-03 to 2016-10-20
Sabrina Galiñanes Reyes	UK	Glasgow University	Yutetsu Kuruma	2017-01-10 to 2017-03-20
Chanitanya Mungi	India	Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune	Jim Cleaves/Yayoi Hongo	2017-01-10 to 2017-02-17
Lewis Ward	US	California Institute of Technoloty	Shawn McGlynn	2017-01-10 to 2017-02-09
Karen Bakakas	Gabon	University or Sciences and Technology of Masuku	Tomohiko Sato	2017-01-10 to 2017-02-08
Cédric LIGNA	Gabon	University or Sciences and Technology of Masuku	Tomohiko Sato	2017-01-10 to 2017-02-08
Avinash Vicholous Dass	France	CNRS	Kuhan Chandru	2017-01-10 to 2017-03-29
Woo Je Chang	Korea	Seoul National University	Shawn McGlynn	2017-01-10 to 2017-02-17
Haiyang Wang	Australia	The Australian National University	Ramon Brasser	2017-01-10 to 2017-02-24
Quiterie Forquenot	France	Ecole Polytechnique	Marine Lasbleis	2017-04-14 to 2017-08-22
Rudrarup Bose	India	National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar	Jim Cleaves	2017-05-15 to 2017-07-24
Mathilde Kervazo	France	UFR Sciences et Techniques, Universite de Nantes	Marine Lasbleis	2017-06-26 to 2017-09-06
Sha Yang	China	Nanjing University of Science and Technology	Jim Cleaves	2017-07-10 to 2017-07-28
Noel Yeh Martin	Italy	University of Trento	Irena Mamajanov Katie Petrie	2017-08-14 to 2017-10-18
Niraja Vijay Bapat	India	IISER Pune	Jim Cleaves	2017-09-11 to 2017-10-18
Sabrina Galiñanes Reyes	UK	University of Glasgow	Yutetsu Kuruma Tomohiro Mochizuki	2017-09-14 to 2018-02-02

Visitors for EON Workshops and EON Annual Meetings

EON ELSI — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 03:22:32 +0000

Short-term visitors in 2017

Norman Packard   ProtoLife   Founder                                13-Mar-2017    7-Apr-2017
John McCaskill       Ruhr-University-Bochum Professor          14-Mar-2017    30-Mar-2017
Lukas Straczek     Ruhr-University-Bochum Staff Scientist    16-Mar-2017    30-Mar-2017

EON Annual Meeting 2017

Mary Voytek   NASA   Senior Scientist 5-Jan-2017   18-Jan-2017
Steve Vance   California Institute of Technology   Assistant Professor   8-Jan-2017   25-Jan-2017
Betul Kacar   Harvard University   Research Associate    7-Jan-2017   3-Feb-2017
Lynn Rothschild   NASA Ames Research Center    Evolutionary biologist, Astrobiologist    10-Jan-2017    17-Jan-2017
Feng Tian   Tsinghua University   Professor   11-Jan-2017   14-Jan-2017
Marcelo Gleiser   Dartmouth College   Professor   11-Jan-2017   14-Jan-2017
Arsev Aydinoglu   Middle East Technical University   Visiting Assistant Professor   10-Jan-2017   15-Jan-2017
Nicholas Hud   Georgia Tech   Professor   10-Jan-2017   15-Jan-2017
Eran Agmon   Columbia University   Postdoctoral Research Scientist   10-Jan-2017   28-Jan-2017
Costantino Vetriani   Rutgers University   Professor   9-Jan-2017   15-Jan-2017
Joseph Nuth   NASA Goddard Space Flight Centerh   Senior Scientist   9-Jan-2017   15-Jan-2017
Zehra Taskin   Hacettepe University   PhD Student   9-Jan-2017   16-Jan-2017
Marco Moracci   Istituto di Bioscienze e Biorisorse (IBBR/CNR)   Senior Researcher   8-Jan-2017   14-Jan-2017
Emmanuelle J. Javaux   University of Liege   Professor   8-Jan-2017   15-Jan-2017
Nicolas Bredeche   Universite Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC)   Professor   8-Jan-2017   15-Jan-2017
Tom Kaiser   Emory University   Postdoctoral Research Scientist   8-Jan-2017   20-Jan-2017
Justin Meyer    University of California, San Diego   Assistant Professor 7-Jan-2017   16-Jan-2017
Simon Conway Morris   Cambridge University   Professor 10-Jan-2017   16-Jan-2017
Peter F. Stadler   University of Leipzig   Professor   6-Jan-2017   15-Jan-2017
Christoph Flamm   University of Vienna   Professor   6-Jan-2017   19-Jan-2017
Daniel Merkle   University of Southern Denmark   Professor   6-Jan-2017   19-Jan-2017

EON Workshop on Electrochemistry at the origin of life 2016

Cayman Unterborn   Arizona State University   Exploration Fellow 14-Nov-2016   18-Nov-2016
Alycia Weinberger   Cargenie Institution of Washington   Staff Scientist   14-Nov-2016   18-Nov-2016
Anat Shahar   Carnegie Institution of Washington   Staff Scientist   14-Nov-2016   18-Nov-2016
Andy Casey   University of Cambridge   Post-doctorate researcher   14-Nov-2016   18-Nov-2016
Angie Wolfgang   The Pennsylvania State University   NSF Fellow   14-Nov-2016   18-Nov-2016
Anne-Sophie Libert   University of Namur   Assistant Professor    14-Nov-2016   18-Nov-2016
Caroline Dorn   University of Bern   Post-doctorate researcher   14-Nov-2016   18-Nov-2016
Dennis Hoening   German Aerospace Center (DLR)   Researcher   14-Nov-2016   18-Nov-2016
Elizabeth Tasker   ISAS/JAXA   Assistant Professor   14-Nov-2016   18-Nov-2016
Johanna Teske   Carnegie Institution of Washington   Postdoctoral Fellow   14-Nov-2016   18-Nov-2016
June Wicks   Princeton University   Associate Research Scholar   14-Nov-2016   18-Nov-2016
Lena Noack   Royal Observatory of Belgium   Post-doctoral Researcher   14-Nov-2016   18-Nov-2016
Steven Desch   Arizona State University   Professor   14-Nov-2016   18-Nov-2016
Mary Voytek   NASA   Senior Scientist 7-Nov-2016    21-Nov-2016

EON Workshop on Planetary Diversity 2016

Laurie Barge   NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory   Research Scientist   8-Nov-2016   11-Nov-2016
Bethany Theiling   University of Tulsa   Assistant Professor   8-Nov-2016   11-Nov-2016
Erin Iski   University of Tulsa   Assistant Professor   8-Nov-2016   11-Nov-2016
Gabriel LeBlanc   University of Tulsa   Assistant Professor   8-Nov-2016   11-Nov-2016
Terence Kee   University of Leeds   Reader   9-Nov-2016   11-Nov-2016
Barry Herschy   University of South Florida   Postdoctoral Fellow   8-Nov-2016   11-Nov-2016
Michael Russell   NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory   Research Scientist   8-Nov-2016   11-Nov-2016
Ryan Cameron   NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory       8-Nov-2016   11-Nov-2016
Victor Sojo   Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich   Fellow   8-Nov-2016   11-Nov-2016
Norman Packard   ProtoLife   Founder    19-Oct-2016   18-Nov-2016

EON Workshop on History and Philosophy of Origins Research

Ana Barahona   Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico   Professor   22-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Alvaro Moreno   University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)    Professor   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Antonio Lazcano   Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico   Professor   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Athel Cornish-Bowden   Aix-Marseille Universite / CNRS   Directeur de Recherche Emerite   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Benjamin Cocanougher   Howard Hughes Medical Insititute   Medical Research Fellow   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Carlos Mariscal    University of Nevada, Reno    Assistant Professor   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Carol Cleland   University of Colorado Boulder   Professor   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Chiho Watanabe   Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology   Post-doctoral Researcher   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Juli Pereto    Universitat de Valencia   Professor   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Kenji Ikehara   International Institute for Advanced Studies   Professor   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Kunihiko Kaneko   University of Tokyo   Professor   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Maria Luz Cardenas   Aix-Marseille Universite / CNRS   Senior Scientist   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Marie-Christine Maurel   Universite Pierre et Marie Curie (Sorbonne Universite)   Professor   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Michel Morange    Republique des Savoirs, Ecole Normale Superieure    Professor   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Nathaniel Comfort   Johns Hopkins University   Professor   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Terrence Deacon   University of California Berkeley   Professor   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Tom Froese   Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico   Associate Professor   24-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Michael Lachmann   Santa Fe Institute   Professor   24-Aug-2016   4-Sep-2016
Arsev Aydinoglu   Middle East Technical University   Visiting Assistant Professor   22-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Johnny Bontemps       Science Journalist    22-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Phillip Hammer   Boise State University   Graduate student   8-Aug-2016   26-Aug-2016
Martin Biehl   University of Hertfordshire   PhD Student   14-Jul-2016   6-Sep-2016

Short-term visitors in 2016

Sudha Rajamani   Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune   Assistant Professor   15-Nov-2016   29-Nov-2016
John McCaskill   Ruhr　University　Bochum   Professor   24-Oct-2016   5-Nov-2016
Nicolas Bredeche   Institut des Systemes Intelligents et de Robotique (ISIR)   Professor   22-Oct-2016   29-Oct-2016
Norman Packard   ProtoLife   Founder   19-Oct-2016   18-Nov-2016
Mary Voytek   NASA Headquarters   Senior Scientist   13-Jun-2016   1-Jul-2016
Christophe Sotin   JPL/Caltech    Chief Scientist, Solar System Exploration Directorate    30-May-2016   3-Jun-2016
Uffe Thorsen   University of Southern Denmark Dept. of Mathematics & Computer Science   Ph.D. student   11-May-2016   24-May-2016
Joseph Moran   University of Strasbourg & CNRS     Director   11-Apr-2016   22-Apr-2016
Norman Packard   ProtoLife   Founder   25-Feb-2016   20-May-2016
Arsev Umur Aydinoglu   Middle East Technical University   Visiting Assistant Professor   25-Jan-2016   29-Jan-2016

EON Annual Meeting 2016

Mary Voytek   NASA   Senior Scientist   4-Jan-2016   15-Jan-2016
Caleb Scharf   Columbia University   Director   17-Dec-2015   15-Jan-2016
Steve Vance   California Institute of Technology   Assistant Professor    10-Jan-2016    16-Jan-2016
Costantino Vetriani   Rutgers University　Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences and Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology   Professor   12-Jan-2016   15-Jan-2016
Daniel Merkle   University of Southern Denmark Dept. of Mathematics & Computer Science    Associate Professor   12-Jan-2016   15-Jan-2016
Emmanuelle Javaux   Universite de Liege   Professor   12-Jan-2016   15-Jan-2016
Hikaru Yabuta   University of Osaka   Assistant Professor   12-Jan-2016   15-Jan-2016
Ivo Hofacker    Institute for Theoretical Chemistry, University of Vienna    Professor   12-Jan-2016   15-Jan-2016
Laura Barge   NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory   Postdoctoral Fellow   12-Jan-2016   15-Jan-2016
Lynn Rothschild   NASA Ames Research Center    Evolutionary biologist, Astrobiologist    12-Jan-2016   15-Jan-2016
Pieter B Burger   Emory University   Postdoctoral Research Fellow   12-Jan-2016   15-Jan-2016
Christoph Flamm    Institute for Theoretical Chemistry, University of Vienna    Associate Professor   12-Jan-2016   21-Jan-2016

EON Workshop on a Strategy for Origins of Life Research 2015

Caleb Scharf   Columbia University   Director   24-Aug-2015   18-Sep-2015
Mary Voytek   NASA   Senior Scientist   24-Aug-2015   26-Sep-2015
Christopher Switzer    University of California, Riverside    Professor   26-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Hikaru Yabuta   University of Osaka   Assistant Professor   26-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Kensei Kobayashi   Yokohama National University   Professor   26-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Lee Cronin   University of Glasgow   Professor   26-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Martin Biehl   University of Hertfordshire   PhD Student   26-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Nathanael Aubert   Ochanomizu University   Post-doctoral fellow   26-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Olaf Witkowski   University of Tokyo   Post-doctorial fellow   26-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Shawn McGlynn   Tokyo Metropolitan University   Associate Professor   26-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Steven Benner   Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution   Founder   26-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Takashi Ikegami    University of Tokyo   Professor   26-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Feng Tian    Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Science    Professor   25-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Ana Barahona   Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico   Professor   24-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Brice Menard    Johns Hopkins University, Kavli IPMU    Faculty member, Associate member    24-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Juli Pereto   University of Valencia    Associate Professor   24-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Laura Barge   NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory   Postdoctoral Fellow   24-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Robert Pascal   University de Montpellier   Professor   24-Aug-2015   28-Aug-2015
Sudha Rajamani   Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune   Assistant Professor   24-Aug-2015   29-Aug-2015
Norman Packard   ProtoLife   Founder   24-Aug-2015   11-Sep-2015

ELSI Seminars/Talks by EON people

EON ELSI — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 00:42:16 +0000

EON people including visitors occasionally provide a talk at ELSI.
“ELSI Seminar” is an occasional seminar in which a visitor/guest gives a talk on their research.
“ELSI Lunch Talk” is a short seminar which is usually held every Tuesday and Thursday from 12:15 to 12:45 at ELSI-1 Lounge. Attendees can bring their own lunches for this lunch-time seminar.

ELSI Seminar

No seminars are scheduled

ELSI Lunch Talk

Jan 26, 2017: Piet Hut.
Feb 07, 2017: Omer Markovitch.
Feb 16, 2017: Nathaniel Virgo.
Mar 30, 2017: Mayuko Nakagawa

EON Long Term Visitor Project

EON ELSI — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 04:48:36 +0000

EON supports research visits to ELSI for between one and six months, on topics that contribute to the EON questions,

How did life arise on Earth?
How common is life in the Universe?
What fundamental principles explain the emergence of life?

Visitors will generally be asked to give a seminar at ELSI and may be asked to contribute to the EON blog. Visits are expected to produce concrete research outcomes. The form these can take is flexible. A final report must be submitted upon returning to the visitor’s home institution. (The form for this report is attached at the end of this document.)

EON Long-term visitors are expected to spend most of their time at ELSI. If the visit involves spending time at another institute while in Japan, this must be indicated during the application procedure. We may be unable to pay for accommodation or living expenses for that part of the visit.

Informal enquiries are encouraged; these should be addressed to Nathaniel Virgo (nathanielvirgo[at]elsi.jp).

ALife 2016 in Cancun

Stuart Bartlett — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:34:56 +0000

The International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems broke new ground this year, being hosted by the National Autonomous University of Mexico and held at the International Conference Centre of Cancun. This event was also sponsored by EON and several EON members (including myself of course) were there to present their work. ALife always brings a special intellectual environment, a melting pot for crazy ideas and spectacular speculations. There are computer scientists interested in biology, chemists interested in architecture, and everything in between. Being hosted in Cancun made this year’s event extra special since the area hosts some extroardinary biodiversity hotspots such as the protected Isla Contoy, and there is also a whole host of Mayan archeological sites. Hence one can immerse one’s self in the products and stunning beauty of both biological and human evolution. The Mayans left an impressive legacy, evidence of the sophistication of their civilisation, but what remains is not sufficient to uncover their entire story, much is still to be figured out. The communities of EON and ALife face a similar philosophical challenge in uncovering the secrets of life. Modern life contains traces of ancient life, as modern society carries echoes of past civilisations. Deducing which features of the present are preserved relics of the past is at the core of understanding where life came from. As the computational and artificial worlds of ALife form closer ties with the experimental worlds of organic chemistry and geochemistry, there is more hope than ever before that we are homing in on fundamental truths about life on Earth and life as it could be.

Measurement of Ganymede’s tidal deformation can be an effective way to determine the presence/absence of a subsurface deep ocean worlds

Jun Kimura — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 00:31:54 +0000

Our new paper has been just published on the Journal of Geophysical Research – Planets.

Tidal deformation of icy satellites provides crucial information on their subsurface structures. In this study, we investigate the parameter dependence of the tidal displacement and potential Love numbers (i.e., h2 and k2, respectively) of Ganymede. Our results indicate that Love numbers for Ganymede models without a subsurface ocean are not necessarily smaller than those with a subsurface ocean. The phase lag, however, depends primarily on the presence/absence of a subsurface ocean. Thus, the determination of the phase lag would be of importance to infer whether Ganymede possesses a subsurface ocean or not based only on geodetic measurements. Our results also indicate that the major control on Love numbers is the thickness of the ice shell if Ganymede possesses a subsurface ocean. This result, however, does not necessarily indicate that measurement of either of h2 or k2 alone is sufficient to estimate the shell thickness; while a thin shell leads to large h2 and k2 independent of parameters, a thick shell does not necessarily lead to small h2 and k2. We found that, to reduce the uncertainty in the shell thickness, constraining k2 in addition to h2 is necessary, highlighting the importance of collaborative analyses of topography and gravity field data.

Paper title: Tidal deformation of Ganymede: Sensitivity of Love numbers on the interior structure
Authors: Shunichi Kamata, Jun Kimura, Koji Matsumoto, Francis Nimmo, Kiyoshi Kuramoto, and Noriyuki Namiki
Journal: Journal of Geophysical Research, doi:10.1002/2016JE005071, 2016.
Read the paper here

Family Science Lecture on the Deep-Sea at the Institute for Advanced Study

Donato Giovannelli — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 02:13:29 +0000

This past winter I was invited to give one of the bi-annual Family Science Lecture at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. Here the video of the recorded talk. Enjoy!

The EON Workshop on Planetary Diversity

Matthieu Laneuville — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 06:09:04 +0000

We have an upcoming workshop at ELSI on November 14-18, 2016, organised by Matthieu Laneuville (ELSI), Lena Noack (Royal Observatory of Belgium), Johanna Teske (Carnegie Institution) and Cayman Unterborn (Arizona State University).

Venue: ELSI-2 building, Rm 407.

The workshop aims to bring together a small group of international researchers in different fields related to planet formation, evolution and observation to discuss planetary diversity in our galaxy, as well as potential methodological pitfalls and observational constraints.

The theory of planetary formation and evolution has been built mostly from observations of our Solar System and the extensive data coverage of the Earth and its close neighbors. This is by construction very biased and it is time to reinvestigate some of the accepted knowledge in light of the new exoplanetary dataset. The apparent diversity of planetary system dynamic states has already revolutionized how we think planetary formation proceeded in our Solar System. A natural next step is to understand how this dataset can now revolutionize our understanding of how planets evolve.

There is already a wealth of new data available regarding the mass and radius distribution of exoplanets, which can be refined by the composition of the parent star. In addition, the next decade will see an increase in planetary spectra data from both James Webb Space Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope. The range of possible conditions and resulting dynamic states
on terrestrial planets is important to understand for origins of life in the Universe, but also to test our current understanding of planetary evolution. However, how to meaningfully include these datasets in models of planetary diversity is still largely debated.

The goal of this workshop is to build the tools and professional relationships to help us extract as much meaning from the dataset, while remaining in the realm of predictive science.

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Complex Autocatalysis in Simple Chemistries

Nathaniel Virgo — Mon, 30 May 2016 07:18:55 +0000

I’ve just published a paper on my work with Takashi Ikegami and Simon McGregor on self-organisation in chemical systems, and the concept of autocatalysis. Autocatalysis means chemical self-production – a set of chemical species that can collectively produce more of the same set of species. What we found was that under some circumstances, chemical systems seem to “want” to become autocatalytic. The harder you try to make it for the system to find an autocatalytic system, the more clever it will be in coming up with one anyway. The reason for this has to do with thermodynamics, and the general tendency of all physical systems to seek a minimum of the free energy.

Virgo, N., Ikegami, T. and McGregor, S. (2016) Complex Autocatalysis in Simple Chemistries. Artificial Life 22(2), pp. 138-152. doi:10.1162/ARTL_a_00195

Read the paper here

“The deep sea, the origin of life, and astrobiology ” – A short article appeared in the Institute Letter

Donato Giovannelli — Tue, 17 May 2016 03:59:56 +0000

A deep-sea hydrothermal vent photographed through the DSV Alvin porthole by Donato Giovannelli during a dive at 2500 m

Recently a short article I wrote on Earth’s last frontiers—the deep-sea—appeared in the Institute for Advanced Studies Institute Letter. In the article I briefly speak about the discovery of deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and how deep-sea exploration has changed our view on life and habitability. You can read the article at the following link https://www.ias.edu/ideas/2016/giovannelli-last-frontier. I strongly believe that deep-sea exploration, and a better understanding of the largest ecosystem of our planet could help us to shed light on the emergence and evolution of life on our planet.

Enjoy!