Stanford EE Computer Systems Colloquium

4:15PM, Wednesday, April 23, 2014
HP Auditorium, Gates Computer Science Building Room B1
http://ee380.stanford.edu

The origin of life and the search for a second genesis of life on other worlds as problems in information science

Christopher P. McKay
Planetary Scientist
Space Science Division
NASA Ames
About the talk:

The location and nature of origin of life remains unknown but studies of biochemistry indicate that nature of life that most distinguishes it from other complex open systems is information storage and algorithm based processes. These processes enable Darwinian evolution. The search for a second genesis of life in our Solar System is a search for a material system that also enables Darwinian evolution but represents an separate origin form life Earth.

Slides:

There is no downloadable version of the slides for this talk available at this time.

About the speaker:

[140423-ChrisMcKay.jpg] Chris McKay is a research scientist with the NASA Ames Research Center. His current research focuses on the evolution of the solar system and the origin of life. He is also actively involved in planning for future Mars missions including human exploration. Chris been involved in research in Mars-like environments on Earth, traveling to the Antarctic dry valleys, Siberia, the Canadian Arctic, and the Atacama, Namib, & Sahara deserts to study life in these Mars-like environments. He was a co-investigator on the Huygens probe to Saturn's moon Titan in 2005, the Mars Phoenix lander mission in 2008, and the current Mars Science Laboratory mission (2012).

Contact information:

Chris McKay
Nasa Ames