We are now seeking to recruit a PhD candidate to join our collaborative interdisciplinary research project, Exploring Uncertainty and Risk in Contemporary Astrobiology (EURiCA), funded by the Leverhulme Trust and led by Peter Vickers at Durham. I have reproduced below the explanation of this project from my previous blog post. The candidate will be based … Continue reading PhD Opportunity: Philosophy of Astrobiology at Durham, UK
New collaboration: an Ediacaran mass extinction?
Large organisms whose fossils can reasonably be interpreted as animals did not evolve until late in the Ediacaran period, more than four billion years after the Earth formed. It’s sometimes claimed that these represented the first “complex life” but there’s really nothing simple about bacteria, archaea, algae or fungi, which were already well established and hugely … Continue reading New collaboration: an Ediacaran mass extinction?
Astrobiology before “astrobiologists”: a potted history
Astrobiologists aim to work out how life fits into the wider universe, uniting biology with the planetary and space sciences to draw a unified picture of the cosmos and our place in it. This ambition is, of course, far older than the discipline itself. A 1748 engraving of an astronomy lecture. [Source] The atomist philosopher … Continue reading Astrobiology before “astrobiologists”: a potted history
