2015 AAAS Annual Meeting (12-16 February 2015)

February 12 - 16, 2015

Searching for Alternative Chemistries of Life on Earth and Throughout the Universe

A broad multidimensional understanding of the chemistries of life and the planetary processes that shape their evolution and development is now ascendant, driven by a remarkable wealth of research innovations to explore and extend the boundaries of what we call living. When these environmental niches and planetary processes become more diverse and extreme -- from deep in the oceans to the limits of our atmosphere, from the planets of our solar system to the ever-increasing discoveries of new exoplanets of other suns -- how might these chemistries differ from what we currently know? Researchers are in pursuit of the answers through a top-down, systems-biological survey of extreme environments and identification of their associated biochemical signatures; a bottom-up, systems-chemical investigation of emergent lifelike behavior from inanimate yet dynamic chemical networks; and work at the “Golden Spike,” the interface of inanimate and living matter, to explore the landscape of alternative biochemistries and their potential origins here and elsewhere in the universe. Questions to be discussed include: Why is this multi-realm approach needed? How do the distinct research realms complement each other in identifying signatures of alternative living systems? How do we unravel the complex interplay of planetary, chemical, and biological evolutionary networks, and what might we gain from their confluence?