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Class Schedule
Spring '00
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Videoconference
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Spring '00
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Spring '02
Special Topics class
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Spring
2000
WEEK
1: The
Science of Astrobiology
GUEST LECTURER:
David Morrison (NASA Ames)
SUGGESTED READING:
"Astrobiology Roadmap" (Brochure available for NASA's Astrobiology Institiute)
WEEK
2: Origin
of the Biogenic Elements
GUEST LECTURER:
Dante Lauretta (ASU) "Stellar evolution, nucelosynthesis and origin of
the elements"
SUGGESTED READING:
Taylor, R. J. (1988) Nucleosynthesis and the Origin of the Elements Phil.
Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A v. 325: 391-403 /
Fowler, W. A. (1984) The Quest for the Origin of the Elements Science
v. 226: 922-935
WEEK
3: Origin
of Planets
GUEST LECTURER:
Jack Lissauer (NASA Ames) "Planet formation"
SUGGESTED READING:
Lissauer, Jack (1993) Planet Formation Annual Rev. Astron /
Astrophys. 31: 129-174. Lissauer, Jack (1999) How common are habitable
planets? Nature 402: 11-14.
WEEK
4: Cosmoschemistry
of Meteorites
GUEST LECTURER:
Laurie Leshin (ASU)
SUGGESTED READING:
Lipschutz, M. E. and Schultz, L. (1999) Meteorites in Encycopedia of the
Solar System, San Diego: Academic Press, p. 629-671 /
Engel M. H. and Macko S. A. (1997) Isotopic evidence for extraterrestrial
non-racemic amino acids in the Murchison Meteorite /
Nature 389, 265-268. Leshin L. A., McKeegan K. D., Carpenter P. K., and
Harvey R. P. (1998) Oxygen isotopic constraints on the genesis of carbonates
from martian meteorite ALH84001 / Geochim.
Cosmochim. Acta 62, 3-13.
Week
4: The
Role of Impacts in Early Biosphere Development and Evolution
GUEST LECTURER:
David Kring (Univ. of Arizona)
SUGGESTED READING:
Kring, D.A., 1993, The Chicxulub impact event and possible causes of K/T
Boundary extinctions, in Proc. of the First Annual Symposium of Fossils
in Arizona, D. Boaz and M. Dorman (eds.), Mesa Southwest Museum, pp. 63-79.
(Review paper. A little old, it is still pretty good but in common use
it around the world for class reading assignments (e.g., Stephen Jay Gould
uses it at Harvard).) / Toon O.B., et al.,
1997, Environmental perturbations caused by the impacts of asteroids and
comets, Reviews of Geophysics 35, pp. 41-78. (A good theoretical assessment
of several environmental perturbations) /
Melosh, H.J. 1992. Impact crater geology, in Encyclopedia of Earth System
Science, vol. 2, W.A. Nierenber (Ed.), Academic Press, pp. 591-605. (Basics
of impact crater formation and structure.)
Week
8: Biological
Perspective of the Origin & Evolution of Life
GUEST LECTURER:
Norm R. Pace (Univ. of Colorado)
SUGGESTED READING:
Pace. 1997. A molecular view of microbial diversity and the biosphere.
Science 276:734-740. / Woese. 1998. The universal
ancestor. PNAS 95:6854-6859. / Pace. 1991.
Origin of Life - facing up to the physical setting. Cell 65:531-533. /
Gold. 1992. Deep hot biosphere. PNAS 89:6045-605n. (or better, peruse
the more recent book).
Week
9: Term
Break – No Assignment
Week
10: Origin
& Evolution of Photosynthesis
GUEST LECTURER:
Robert Blankenship (ASU)
SUGGESTED READING:
Blankenship, R.E., and Hartman, H. (1998) The origin and evolution of
oxygenic photosynthesis. Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 23, 94-97 /
Schubert, W.D., Klukas, O., Saenger, W., Witt, H.T., Fromme, P., and Krauss,
N. (1998) A common ancestor for oxygenic and anoxygenic photosynthetic
systems: A comparison based on the structural model of photosystem I.
Journal of Molecular Biology, 280, 297-314.
Week
11: Evolution
of Atmospheric Oxygen
GUEST LECTURER:
David Des Marais (NASA Ames)
SUGGESTED READING:
Des Marais, D.J. 1994, Tectonic control of the crustal organic carbon
reservoir during the Precambrian, Chemical Geology 114, 303-314 /
Des Marais, D.J. 1997, Long-term evolution of the biogeochemical carbon
cycle, pp. 429-448, In J.F. Banfield and K.H. Nealson (eds), "Geomicrobiology:
Interactions Between Microbes and Minerals", Reviews in Mineralogy Volume
35, Mineralogical Society of America, 448 p.
Week
12:
The Earliest Animanls
GUEST LECTURER:
Jack Farmer (ASU)
SUGGESTED READING:
Erwin, D., J. Valentine, D. Jablonski. 1997. The origin of animal body
plans. American Scientist 85(2), 126-137, 1997. (Also Comment and Reply:
Erwin et al. "A sexual explosion?" Ð Reply, 85(3) 204, 1997). /
Ayala, F. J., Rzhetsky, A., Ayala, F. J. 1998, Origin of the metazoan
phyla: Molecular clocks confirm paleontological estimates. Proc. Natl.
Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 95, 606-611. / Wang D.Y.C.,
Kumar S., Hedges S.B. 1999, Divergence time estimates for the early history
of animal phyla and the origin of plants, animals and fungi. Proc. Royal
Soc. London Series B-Biological Sciences 266, 163-171.
Week
13:
Exploring for Life in the Solar System
GUEST LECTURER:
Jack Farmer (ASU)
SUGGESTED READING:
Farmer, J.D. and D.J. Des Marais, 1999, Exploring for a record of ancient
Martian life, Journ. Geophys. Res. 104 (E11) 26,977-26,995 /
Farmer, J.D. Implementing a strategy to explore for ancient Martian life,
p. 58-65, In Julian Hiscox (Editor) The Search for Life on Mars,
British Interplanetary Society, London, 112 pp. /
Clifford, S.M. 1987, Polar basal melting on Mars, Journ. Geophys. Res.
92(B9) 9135-9152.
Week
14:
Terraforming Mars
GUEST LECTURER:
Chris McKay (NASA Ames)
SUGGESTED READING:
McKay, C.P., O.B. Toon, and J.F. Kasting 1991, Making Mars habitable.
Nature, 352, 489-496 / McKay, C.P. 1990,
Does Mars have rights? An approach to the environmental ethics of planetary
engineering. pp. 184-197, In D. MacNiven (ed.) "Moral Expertise", Routledge,
New York / McKay, C.P. 1982, Terraforming
Mars. J. British Interplanet. Soc. 35, 427-433.
Week
15:
Gravity and Biology
GUEST LECTURER:
Emily Holton (NASA Ames)
SUGGESTED READING:
Morey-Holton, E.R. (In press) Gravity: A weighty-topic, pp. 1-31, In L.
Rothschild and A. Lister (eds.) "Evolution on Planet Earth: The impact
of the Physical Environment", Academic Press, New York /
Vandenburgh H, Chromiak J, Shansky J, Del Tatto M, Lemaire J. 1999. Space
travel directly induces skeletal muscle atrophy. FASEB J. 13:1031-1038
/ Musgrave ME, Kuang A, Porterfield DM. 1997.
Plant reproduction in spaceflight environments. Gravitational Space Bio.
Bull. 10:83-90 / Souza KA, Black SD, Wassersug
RJ. 1995. Amphibian development in the virtual absence of gravity. Proc.
Natl. Acad. Sci. 92:1975-1978.
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