Scientific Calendar Event



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  • Monday, 15 September 2003
    • 08:00 - 09:30 REGISTRATION
      Location: Adriatico Guest House (Lower Level 1)
      • 08:00 REGISTRATION 1h30'
    • 09:30 - 10:00 OPENING CEREMONY - Welcome Addresses
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 09:30 OPENING CEREMONY - Welcome Addresses 30'
        Speaker: Boncinelli, Grymes, Molaro, van Dunne, Owen, Raulin, Chela-Flores
    • 10:00 - 10:45 Overview of cosmic evolution
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 10:00 Overview of cosmic evolution 45'
        Speaker: George V. Coyne, S.J. (Specola Vaticana, Citta' del Vaticano)
    • 10:45 - 11:15 Coffee Break
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 10:45 Coffee Break 30'
    • 11:15 - 12:00 Physical phenomena underlying the origin of life
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 11:15 Physical phenomena underlying the origin of life 45'
        Speaker: Juan Perez-Mercader (Centro de Astrobiologia, Associated to NAI, Madrid, Spain)
    • 12:00 - 12:30 The origin of biogenic elements
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 12:00 The origin of biogenic elements 30'
        Speaker: Francesca Matteucci (University of Trieste)
    • 12:30 - 12:45 Thermochemistry of the Dark Age
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 12:30 Thermochemistry of the Dark Age 15'
        Speaker: Denis Puy (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
    • 12:45 - 14:30 Lunch Break
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 12:45 Lunch Break 1h45'
    • 14:30 - 15:00 Recent advances and setbacks in searching for the oldest life on earth: a geologist's viewpoint
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 14:30 Recent advances and setbacks in searching for the oldest life on earth: a geologist's viewpoint 30'
        Speaker: Stephen Moorbath (Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, U.K.)
    • 15:00 - 15:30 The NASA Astrobiology Institute
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 15:00 The NASA Astrobiology Institute 30'
        Speaker: Rosalind Grymes (NASA Astrobiology Institute, USA)
    • 15:30 - 16:00 EANA, The European Exo/Astrobiology Network Association
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 15:30 EANA, The European Exo/Astrobiology Network Association 30'
        Speaker: Andre Brack (Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire, CNRS, Orleans, France)
    • 16:00 - 16:30 Coffee Break
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 16:00 Coffee Break 30'
    • 16:30 - 16:45 On the apparently consistent L-biased enantiomeric excesses in meteoritic extracts as representing a form of attenuated forensic stereochemical evidence of chiral information derived from terrestr...
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 16:30 On the apparently consistent L-biased enantiomeric excesses in meteoritic extracts as representing a form of attenuated forensic stereochemical evidence of chiral information derived from terrestr... 15'
        Speaker: Simon Nicholas Platts (Carnegie Institution of Washington, USA & Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA)
    • 16:45 - 17:00 Kinetic modeling of the SOAI-type alkylzinc addition as a model system for efficient chiral autoamplification
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 16:45 Kinetic modeling of the SOAI-type alkylzinc addition as a model system for efficient chiral autoamplification 15'
        Speaker: Jean-Claude Micheau (*) and Thomas Buhse (**) ((*) Univ. P. Sabatier, Toulouse, France (**) Universidad Autonoma de Morelos, Mexico)
    • 17:00 - 17:15 Phase transition beats in natural optical activity and parity violation of alanine enantiomers
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 17:00 Phase transition beats in natural optical activity and parity violation of alanine enantiomers 15'
        Speaker: Wang Wenqing (Peking University, China)
    • 17:15 - 17:30 Break
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 17:15 Break 15'
    • 17:30 - 17:45 Origin and evolution of metabolic pathways
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 17:30 Origin and evolution of metabolic pathways 15'
        Speaker: Matteo Brilli and Renato Fani (Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e Genetica, University of Florence, Italy)
    • 17:45 - 18:00 A mechanism for the prebiotic emergence of proteins: the role of proton gradient and high temperature in the polymerization of amino acids embedded in bilayers
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 17:45 A mechanism for the prebiotic emergence of proteins: the role of proton gradient and high temperature in the polymerization of amino acids embedded in bilayers 15'
        Speaker: Harold P. De Vladar (*), Roberto Cipriani (**) ((*) Fundacion IDEA, Venezuela, (**) Universidad Simon Bolivar)
    • 18:00 - 18:15 A functional and self-referential model for the genetic code
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 18:00 A functional and self-referential model for the genetic code 15'
        Speaker: Romeu Cardoso Guimaraes (Universidad Federal Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil)
    • 18:15 - 18:30 The importance of biased synthesis in chemical evolution studies
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 18:15 The importance of biased synthesis in chemical evolution studies 15'
        Speaker: A. Negron-Mendoza and S. Ramos-Bernal (UNAM, Mexico)
  • Tuesday, 16 September 2003
    • 08:30 - 09:00 Prebiotic organic synthesis and the emergence of life: from the Miller experiment to the start of biological evolution
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 08:30 Prebiotic organic synthesis and the emergence of life: from the Miller experiment to the start of biological evolution 30'
        Speaker: Antonio Lazcano (UNAM, Mexico)
    • 09:00 - 09:30 Mineral surfaces as a cradle of primordial genetic material
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 09:00 Mineral surfaces as a cradle of primordial genetic material 30'
        Speaker: Enzo Gallori (University of Florence, Italy)
    • 09:30 - 10:00 Adsorption and self-organization of small molecules on inorganic surfaces: some applications to the origin of life
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 09:30 Adsorption and self-organization of small molecules on inorganic surfaces: some applications to the origin of life 30'
        Speaker: Donald G. Fraser (University of Oxford, UK)
    • 10:00 - 10:30 Origin and evolution of very early sequence motifs in enzymes
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 10:00 Origin and evolution of very early sequence motifs in enzymes 30'
        Speaker: Herrick Baltscheffsky (University of Stockholm, Sweden)
    • 10:30 - 11:15 Group photograph at the Terrance Level of the AGH to be followed by a Coffee Break (In case of bad weather the photo will be taken on Wednesday during the morning coffee break)
      Location: Adriatico Guest House (Terrace)
      • 10:30 Group photograph at the Terrance Level of the AGH to be followed by a Coffee Break (In case of bad weather the photo will be taken on Wednesday during the morning coffee break) 45'
    • 11:15 - 11:45 The lipid world: from catalytic and informational headgroups to Micelle replication and evolution without nucleic acids
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 11:15 The lipid world: from catalytic and informational headgroups to Micelle replication and evolution without nucleic acids 30'
        Speaker: Doron Lancet (The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
    • 11:45 - 12:15 Spontaneous generation of amino acid structures in the interstellar medium
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 11:45 Spontaneous generation of amino acid structures in the interstellar medium 30'
        Speaker: Uwe Meierhenrich (University of Bremen, Germany)
    • 12:15 - 12:30 Experimental study of the degradation of complex organic molecules. Application to the origin of extended sources in cometary atmospheres
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 12:15 Experimental study of the degradation of complex organic molecules. Application to the origin of extended sources in cometary atmospheres 15'
        Speaker: N. Fray (Universite Paris 7 and Paris 12, France)
    • 12:30 - 14:30 Lunch Break
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 12:30 Lunch Break 2h0'
    • 14:30 - 15:30 Recollections of the beginning of chemical evolution experiments
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 14:30 Recollections of the beginning of chemical evolution experiments 1h0'
        Speaker: Stanley Miller (University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, USA)
    • 15:30 - 16:30 Reception in honour of Professor Stanley Miller
      Location: Adriatico Guest House (Terrace)
      • 15:30 Reception in honour of Professor Stanley Miller 1h0'
    • 16:30 - 17:00 Viable halobacteria from permian salt deposits - and in outer space?
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 16:30 Viable halobacteria from permian salt deposits - and in outer space? 30'
        Speaker: Helga Stan-Lotter (University of Salzburg, Austria)
    • 17:00 - 17:15 The discovery of organics in Earth's deep materials (sub-basement red paleosols) drilled in the North Pacific (ODP LEG 197): Implications for astrobiology research
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 17:00 The discovery of organics in Earth's deep materials (sub-basement red paleosols) drilled in the North Pacific (ODP LEG 197): Implications for astrobiology research 15'
        Speaker: Rosalba Bonaccorsi (University of Trieste)
    • 17:15 - 17:45 The Rosetta mission
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 17:15 The Rosetta mission 30'
        Speaker: Gerard Schwehm (European Space Agency, Noordwijk, The Netherlands)
    • 17:45 - 18:00 Fate of glycine and other complex biomolecules during interstellar collapse
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 17:45 Fate of glycine and other complex biomolecules during interstellar collapse 15'
        Speaker: Sandip Chakrabarti (Centre for Space Physics, Kolkata, India)
    • 18:00 - 18:15 Chemical evolution of simple biomolecules in hydrodynamically collapsing interstellar gas in presence of grains
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 18:00 Chemical evolution of simple biomolecules in hydrodynamically collapsing interstellar gas in presence of grains 15'
        Speaker: Kinsuk Acharyya (Centre for Space Physics, Kolkata, India)
  • Wednesday, 17 September 2003
    • 08:30 - 09:00 Mars odyssey
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 08:30 Mars odyssey 30'
        Speaker: Michael Meyer (NASA Headquarters, USA)
    • 09:00 - 09:30 Search for life on Mars: the Beagle 2 lander and the Stone experiment
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 09:00 Search for life on Mars: the Beagle 2 lander and the Stone experiment 30'
        Speaker: Andre Brack (Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire, France)
    • 09:30 - 10:00 Water evolution on Mars
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 09:30 Water evolution on Mars 30'
        Speaker: Philippe Masson (Universite' Paris-Sud, France)
    • 10:00 - 10:15 Minimal units of terraforming an alternative for remodelling Mars
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 10:00 Minimal units of terraforming an alternative for remodelling Mars 15'
        Speaker: Omar Pensado Diaz (Instituto de Ciencias Avanzadas, Mexico)
    • 10:15 - 10:45 Coffee Break
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 10:15 Coffee Break 30'
    • 10:45 - 11:15 Early life and hydrothermal environments
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 10:45 Early life and hydrothermal environments 30'
        Speaker: Frances Westall (Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire, France)
    • 11:15 - 11:30 Isotopic evidence for microbial sulfate reduction and methanotrophy during the late Archean, Witwatersrand basin, South Africa
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 11:15 Isotopic evidence for microbial sulfate reduction and methanotrophy during the late Archean, Witwatersrand basin, South Africa 15'
        Speaker: Erik Boice (Indiana University, USA)
    • 11:30 - 12:00 Ancient life on Earth and Mars
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 11:30 Ancient life on Earth and Mars 30'
        Speaker: Mark Van Zuilen (Centre de Recherches Petrographiques et Geochimiques, France)
    • 12:00 - 12:15 Studies on copper-chromicyanide as prebiotic catalyst
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 12:00 Studies on copper-chromicyanide as prebiotic catalyst 15'
        Speaker: Kamaluddin and Ali Raj Shah (Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India)
    • 12:15 - 12:30 A surface-mediated origin of the RNA world: "biological" activities of clay-absorbed RNA molecules
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 12:15 A surface-mediated origin of the RNA world: "biological" activities of clay-absorbed RNA molecules 15'
        Speaker: Marco Franchi, Elisa Biondi and Enzo Gallori (University of Florence, Italy)
    • 12:30 - 12:45 Adsorption and catalysis of nucleotide hydrolysis by pyrite in media simulating primeval aqueous environments
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 12:30 Adsorption and catalysis of nucleotide hydrolysis by pyrite in media simulating primeval aqueous environments 15'
        Speaker: A. Vieyra (*) and F. De Souza-Barros (**) ((*) Instituto de Biofisica "Carlos Chagas Filho", (**) Univ. Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
    • 12:45 - 13:00 Phosphate immobilization by oxide precursors and pyrite: implications on phosphate availability before life on Earth
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 12:45 Phosphate immobilization by oxide precursors and pyrite: implications on phosphate availability before life on Earth 15'
        Speaker: A. Vieyra (*) and F. De Souza-Barros (**) ((*) Instituto de Biofisica "Carlos Chagas Filho", (**) Univ. Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
    • 13:00 - 14:30 Lunch Break
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 13:00 Lunch Break 1h30'
    • 14:30 - 14:45 Coenzymes in evolution of the RNA world
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 14:30 Coenzymes in evolution of the RNA world 15'
        Speaker: Mikhail Kritskiy (Bach Institute of Biochemistry, Moscow, Russia)
    • 14:45 - 15:00 Diversity of microbial life on Earth and beyond
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 14:45 Diversity of microbial life on Earth and beyond 15'
        Speaker: Joseph Seckbach (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)
    • 15:00 - 15:15 Title to be announced
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 15:00 Title to be announced 15'
        Speaker: Luis J. Delaye (UNAM, mexico)
    • 15:15 - 15:30 Extraterrestrial impacts on Earth and extinction of life in the Himalaya
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 15:15 Extraterrestrial impacts on Earth and extinction of life in the Himalaya 15'
        Speaker: Vinod Chandra Tewari (Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, India & ICTP)
    • 15:30 - 16:00 Coffee Break
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 15:30 Coffee Break 30'
    • 16:00 - 16:05 Decomposition temperatures of prebiotic monomers
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 16:00 Decomposition temperatures of prebiotic monomers 5'
        Speaker: P.R. Bahn and A. Pappelis (USA)
    • 16:00 - 16:05 Interstellar dust as a tracer of environments favourable to planet formation: evidence for the existence of a metallicity threshold
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Lundqvist Lecture Hall
      • 16:00 Interstellar dust as a tracer of environments favourable to planet formation: evidence for the existence of a metallicity threshold 5'
        Speaker: Giovanni Vladilo, Italy
    • 16:05 - 16:10 Prebiotic chirality transfer from extraterrestrial Ca-tetrasubsituted a-amino acids to protein amino acids
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 16:05 Prebiotic chirality transfer from extraterrestrial Ca-tetrasubsituted a-amino acids to protein amino acids 5'
        Speaker: Marco Crisma, Italy
    • 16:05 - 16:10 Characterization of extrasolar planet candidates
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Lundqvist Lecture Hall
      • 16:05 Characterization of extrasolar planet candidates 5'
        Speaker: Jose Gallardo, Chile
    • 16:10 - 16:15 The hunt for "biologically active" biopolymers: spontaneous folding of random RNA oligomers
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 16:10 The hunt for "biologically active" biopolymers: spontaneous folding of random RNA oligomers 5'
        Speaker: M. Franchi and E. Gallori, Italy
    • 16:10 - 16:15 Proposing a United Nations Secretary General SETI International Advisory Board
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Lundqvist Lecture Hall
      • 16:10 Proposing a United Nations Secretary General SETI International Advisory Board 5'
        Speaker: G. Genta, Italy
    • 16:15 - 16:20 Prebiotic polymerization of aminoacids: A Markov chain approach
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 16:15 Prebiotic polymerization of aminoacids: A Markov chain approach 5'
        Speaker: S. Ramos-Bernal and A. Negron-Mendoza, Mexico
    • 16:15 - 16:20 How advanced is ETI?
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Lundqvist Lecture Hall
      • 16:15 How advanced is ETI? 5'
        Speaker: Paolo Musso, Italy
    • 16:20 - 16:25 Hauser-Chomsky-Fitch hypothesis on the evolution of unbounded mental faculties - language and number instincts
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Lundqvist Lecture Hall
      • 16:20 Hauser-Chomsky-Fitch hypothesis on the evolution of unbounded mental faculties - language and number instincts 5'
        Speaker: Tahir Shah, Italy
    • 16:20 - 16:25 The electrochemical CO2 reduction to formate in hydrothermal sulfide ore deposit as a novel abiotic source of organic matter (a hypothesis and the laboratory model)
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 16:20 The electrochemical CO2 reduction to formate in hydrothermal sulfide ore deposit as a novel abiotic source of organic matter (a hypothesis and the laboratory model) 5'
        Speaker: M.S. Kritskiy, Russia
    • 16:25 - 16:30 Amino acid chronology?
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 16:25 Amino acid chronology? 5'
        Speaker: William Collis, Italy
    • 16:30 - 16:35 The role of clay material in shielding DNA against X-ray radiation
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 16:30 The role of clay material in shielding DNA against X-ray radiation 5'
        Speaker: F. Scappini, Italy
    • 19:00 - 20:00 The future of SETI
      Location: Adriatico Guest House Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 19:00 The future of SETI 1h0'
        Speaker: Frank Drake (President, The SETI Institute)
    • 20:30 - 22:45 Conference Dinner (In case of bad weather the dinner will begin at 9 p.m. in the dining room) - Please register with the Conference Secretary before 5 p.m. Monday, 15 September
      Location: Adriatico Guest House (Terrace)
      • 20:30 Conference Dinner (In case of bad weather the dinner will begin at 9 p.m. in the dining room) - Please register with the Conference Secretary before 5 p.m. Monday, 15 September 2h15'