Turning a Corner in the Search for the Origin of Life, SFI Bulletin Anderson Receives Award Phillip W. Anderson, a professor of physics at Princeton University and a member of the Santa Fe Institute's Science Board, was awarded in February the John Bardeen Prize for his contributions to the understanding of broken symmetry, the order parameter in the A and B phases of superfluid helium three, and the role of impurities in metallic superconductors. And the answers are likely to be mutually contradictory. However, a new consensus has emerged within a diverse group of physicists, chemists, and biologists associated with the Santa Fe Institute. These scientists believe that the most important questions on this subject can now be addressed experimentally.
Theory can leave the realm of speculation to focus attention on the interpretation of real data.
But the finding of what seem to be microfossils in Martian rock has jolted people into contemplating the possibility that terrestrial biology may not be as special and mysterious as had long been thought. Perhaps there have been, or still are, life forms of some sort nearby in our solar system. Experimentalists and theorists at SFI and elsewhere are embarking on a new, joint approach to some of the questions that have bugged research into the origin of life for decades. The SFI-based team intends to combine laboratory and theoretical work in its attempt to find fresh answers, and it is looking to NASA for support. Central to this effort is the recent demonstration by Reza Ghadiri's group at Scripps Research Center in La Jolla, California, demonstrated that a small protein can self-replicate.