Uc Museum of paleontology
About UCMP
The UC Museum of Paleontology at Berkeley is a research museum that also develops a wide range of education and outreach online resources and programs, including short courses and summer evolution institutes.
The mission of the UCMP is to investigate and promote the understanding of the roughly four billion year history of life and the diversity of the Earth’s biota through research and education. We are interested in the origin and evolution of the universe, Earth, and life.
OUR WORK
In the context of the STAR program, the UCMP is investigating big questions related to the origin of life and the formation of eukaryotes:
What made Earth not just a habitable planet but one with conditions favorable to abiogenesis?
Did life originate in a deep sea alkaline hydrothermal vent? How many deep sea alkaline hydrothermal vents formed? How many produced a prebiotic metabolism? How many progressed beyond “plus-RNA-world?
How could one deep sea alkaline hydrothermal vent give birth to two kingdoms of prokaryotes in less than 100,000 years starting with flows of energy and small molecules? What conditions and processes led to the formation of the first eukaryote and its diversification?
SUMMER RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES
The UCMP will offer up to two STAR fellowships to conduct research on the origin of life and formation of eukaryotes based on articles coauthored by UCMP director Charles Marshall: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/11/7/690 and https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/14/2/226.
An Earth and planetary science, geochemistry, biochemistry, or cell biology student or teacher could investigate the Hadean Eon conditions and processes that produced an alkaline hydrothermal vent with the composition, structure, and flows of energy and matter suitable for abiogenesis to occur.
A biochemistry or cell biology student or teacher could refine our conceptual model of the hypothesized sequence of major events in the origin and early evolution of life by researching the reactants, products, and catalysts associated with the prebiotic and life’s early metabolism.
They could help us quantify the relative likelihoods of the various key steps in the process and what conditions and processes can explain why it took two billion years for archaea and bacteria to form the first eukaryotes by endosymbiosis.