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What are scientists looking for when searching for alien life? A lot, it turns out: the search for extraterrestrials requires the help from astronomers, planetary scientists, chemists, computer scientists, and geneticists, just to name a few. But are we barking up the wrong carbon-based tree? Could alien life develop in ways we haven’t dreamed of here on Earth? Hear Paul Davies, Sara Seager, Jack Szostak, and other experts give updates on the search for life outside our planet in “Alien Life: Will We Know It When We See It?” part of the Big Ideas series at the 2014 World Science Festival.
This program is part of the Big Ideas Series, made possible with support from the John Templeton Foundation.
What are scientists looking for when searching for alien life? A lot, it turns out: the search for extraterrestrials requires the help from astronomers, planetary scientists, chemists, computer scientists, and geneticists, just to name a few. But are we barking up the wrong carbon-based tree? Could alien life develop in ways we haven’t dreamed of here on Earth? Hear Paul Davies, Sara Seager, Jack Szostak, and other experts give updates on the search for life outside our planet in “Alien Life: Will We Know It When We See It?” part of the Big Ideas series at the 2014 World Science Festival.
This program is part of the Big Ideas Series, made possible with support from the John Templeton Foundation.
Three-time Peabody Award winner, four-time Emmy Award winner, and Dateline NBC correspondent John Hockenberry has broad experience as a journalist and commentator for more than two decades. Hockenberry is the anchor of the public radio show The Takeaway on WNYC and PRI.
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Jack Szostak shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his investigation of telomeres. His current research delves into self-replicating systems and the origin of life.
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Dimitar Sasselov studies stars and planets at Harvard University, where he is the Phillips Professor of Astronomy. His research explores modes of interaction between light and matter. Sasselov and his team discovered several planets orbiting other stars with novel techniques that he hopes to use to find other planets like Earth.
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Sara Seager is a planetary scientist and astrophysicist. She has been a pioneer in the vast and unknown world of exoplanets, planets that orbit stars other than the sun.
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Paul Davies is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist, and best-selling author. He is Regents’ Professor at Arizona State University, where he is Director of Beyond: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science.
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