The Earliest History of Life: Solution to Darwin’s Dilemma
Director of the Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life at UCLA, J. William Schopf received his undergraduate training in geology at Oberlin College, Ohio, and his Ph.D., in biology, from Harvard University. A member of the UCLA faculty since 1968, he has received all of his university’s campus-wide faculty awards: for teaching, research, and academic excellence. A leader in studies of the Precambrian (earliest 85%) history of life, he was the first to discover such ancient microorganisms in Australia, South Africa, the USSR, India, and China; published the first taxonomic monograph on Precambrian microbial communities; and is discoverer of the oldest fossils known. His pioneering use of Raman imagery and confocal scanning laser microscopy to analyze the chemistry and cell structure of rock-embedded fossil microbes have revolutionized his field. Schopf’s studies have been pivotal in extending the documented record of life to 3,500 million years ago, seven times earlier than was previously known.
Note: this talk was the plenary talk at this year’s Microscopy and Microanalysis Meeting in Portland. It was an excellent talk and very interesting.
Meeting to be held on November 9 at 5pm in the CNSI building at UCLA. Dinner is included. $5 for students and $10 for everyone else. (subject to change!)
More details to follow.
SCSMM: Southern California Society for Microscopy and Microanalysis