The origin of life on Earth is a mystery—there are no fossils of the earliest life forms.
But, fast-forward a few hundred million years, and—voila—we see traces of life, from microbes to—zip ahead another billion years—creatures with six legs, a tail and a thorax. But how did these early life forms develop?
Join us for a journey to Mexico where pools of microbes could tell us about life’s earliest moments. Also, the turning point in the history of animals on Earth: the Cambrian explosion. Finally, he may not be a mad scientist, but we’ll meet a chemist who is trying to reproduce early life in the lab.
Guests:
- Max Bernstein, chemist at NASA Ames Research Center
- Bruce Lieberman, geologist at the University of Kansas
- Bertha Shostak
- Charles Bentley
