How Did Life Originate on Earth?

St. Louis County Library – Grant’s View Branch
9700 Musick Road, St. Louis, MO 63123 United States + Google Map

FREE and OPEN to ALL. Junior Academy members, middle and high school students welcome and encouraged to attend. Space is limited. Registration required. Register below!

Featured Speaker: Paul J. Bracher, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts & Sciences, Saint Louis University

There is strong evidence to suggest life developed within the first half billion years of Earth’s existence, and it has continued developing over the last four billion years. Chemistry professor, Dr. Paul Bracher, talks about what we know regarding the early Earth and explores research that tests ideas for the chemistry that might have jump-started the conversion of a mixture of non-living chemicals into living systems capable of evolving into life as we know it. Included is a look at Bracher’s NSF-funded research on what life might look like here on Earth and on other planets, if it began in oil.

“In terms of the history of the planet, how life originated has got to be the greatest scientific question we can ask. To move from mixtures of chemicals to a living system capable of self-replication and evolution – nothing more interesting has happened than this.”

— Paul Bacher

How Did Life Originate on Earth? is a Science in St. Louis Series partnership of the The Academy of Science – St. Louis and St. Louis County Libraries.