While skeptics within the scientific community in recent years have been predicting an Origin of Life field implosion, scientists from four universities are convening September 12-15 at the AAAS (American Academy of Arts and Sciences) Norton Woods conference center next to Harvard for the kickoff of what’s being called the “Origins Federation“. The good news is the John Templeton Foundation is not funding the meeting.
“The Origins of Life Initiative will host an international conference ‘Life in the Universe’. It will be the inaugural science conference for the new Origins Federation of four leading institutions (Harvard University, University of Chicago, ETH-Zurich, and University of Cambridge) to facilitate multidisciplinary and innovative collaborative research on the emergence and early evolution of life, and its place in the cosmos.”
As Pier Luigi Luisi has noted regarding the origin of life investigation, all “new mindstorms” are needed. Some of the veterans of the field speaking at the event whose work I’ve reported on include: Jack Szostak, John Sutherland, Dimitar Sasselov, Matt Powner, Nick Hud, Dieter Braun. Most of these scientists I’ve interviewed at length for my book, The Origin of Life Circus: A How To Make Life Extravaganza.
Among the missing are names like Dave Deamer, Andrew Pohorille, Nick Lane—and Origin of Life pioneer Harry Lonsdale, now deceased, who created an Origin of Life $$$ Challenge a decade ago and then hosted the following online meeting:
Among the attendees/participants listed for the upcoming Origins Federation powwow is Oliver Morton, formerly chief news editor with Nature magazine and now a briefings editor at The Economist, a magazine I once loved and wrote for. Morton sent me this email following Nature magazine ripping off my work re the Altenberg 16 meeting.
“Dear Suzan Mazur
Nick Campbell passed your email on to me.
John [the reporter] went to Altenberg, a meeting we were aware of from a wide range of sources, spoke to people there and elsewhere and reported on what he heard and thought. I don’t see this as requiring any attribution to you. I don’t think his conclusions were yours.
Your hype-y phrase “The Woodstock of Evolution” has, as we said, become a much used tag by bloggers. But in citing it just in that context while not pointing out that your article was the first to use the term in this context . . . we didn’t serve you or the curious reader as well as we should have. I will put a corrigendum acknowledging your first use of that phrase up online and into a subsequent issue of the printed magazine, and link to your original piece through our metadata.
Oliver
Oliver Morton
Chief News and Features Editor
Nature”
So we can expect some major showcasing/”hyping” of the Origins Federation event in the weeks to come. . .
OSCILLATIONS 