NoRCEL's next event

BEP2025

The Network of Researchers on the Chemical Emergence of Life (NoRCEL) is an interdisciplinary collaborative network focused on understanding the origins, emergence and evolution of life from a chemical perspective. Founded by Sohan Jheeta, NoRCEL’s primary aim is to bring together scientists from various disciplines to investigate one of the most fundamental questions in science: how life began. We have now evolved into a truly global network of scientists, researchers, students and lay people coming together to work to investigate and fathom some of the most multi-faceted aspects of – and elusive challenges facing the scientific world. This has led to our more recent missions into exploring global issues, as with our Blue Earth project, as well as developing educational tools in our endeavour to enable wider access to the field of astroscience, especially in the Global South.

Become a member of NoRCEL !

NoRCEL has been established with the aim of kick-starting a debate amongst those practitioners who are directly involved in the theoretical aspects and experimental studies pertaining to the origin of life, and those scientists who traditionally work in other fields. We encourage you to join the network and come together at our meetings in order to air, share and debate their ideas under one roof. It is our fervent desire that our regular conferences, reports and published papers will assist in expediting a better understanding of the origin of life on the Earth.

Upcoming events

News scoop

Pan-African Planetary and Space Science Network (PAPSSN)

Applications are invited from African nationals for scholarships in the fields of Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space and Planetary Science, Planetary Geology and Remote Sensing. APPLY ONLINE The 6th PAPSSN Call offers the following scholarships: TARGET GROUP 1 (Applicants currently enrolled/employed or graduated at one of the partner Universities) STAFF MOBILITY One 3-months Academic Mobility, to BIUST,...

NoRCEL showing at EPSC2024 in Berlin this week

Sohan Jheeta and NoRCEL - showing on stand #14 at the EPSC Conference- Berlin, Henry Ford Building, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany 8–13 September 2024

This week, Miryam Palacios-Pérez is presenting at SMBE

We are extremely pleased that we could award a travel bursary to the very deserving head of NoRCEL's LatAm Hub, Miryam Palacios-Pérez, to help enable her to attend and deliver two presentations at this event held in Mexico...https://smbe2024.org/

Scientists Identify “Pioneer Peptide” That May Have Sparked Life on Earth

Rutgers University scientists have identified a portion of a protein called “Nickelback” that is a likely candidate for kickstarting life on Earth over 3 billion years ago. This finding has important implications for the search for extraterrestrial life, as it offers a new clue for researchers to look for....

Bob Bruner’s 2023 Exhibit NoRCEL

R. B. Bruner, a Denver Museum of Nature and Science volunteer and life-origins enthusiast, has updated his collection on "Meteorites and Minerals associated with the Origin of Life", which he exhibits in conferences around the world. Please check the following page: Meteorites and Minerals associated with the Origin of Life

Multi-instrumental study of a 162173Ryugu Sample (Hayabusa-2 mission, JAXA)

A dark, so-called carbonaceous asteroid, was recently sampled for the first time. History was made when the sampling spacecraft (Hayabusa-2) travelled ~3.2 billion kilometres chasing down this asteroid (known as 162173Ryugu) and returned back to Earth. Our Czech lead consortium is analysing the organic material in 162173Ryugu samples, which makes...

Upcoming events

Jobs & Opportunities

Publications

NoRCEL’s Engagement in Africa: The AstroScience Exploration Network (ASEN)

Materializing on the vibrancy of the African continent, recognizing its people as a key asset, and building on specific strategic advantages, ASEN will funnel the appetite for scientific knowledge through an educational hub that paves the way for the Global South to come to the fore in new global endeavors and will eventually help build a variety of career paths in a diversifying economy.

Bob Bruner’s Meteorites and Minerals Exhibit

Here is the story: It is commonly accepted that you need three conditions for life to start: A source of Organic Molecules A solvent (water...

The Gap Map and Grothendieck’s Rising Sea

Mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, whose work is considered abstract even by mathematical standards, once described two ways of solving problems. The first takes the idea...

Evolution of proteome based on the evolution of genetic code

The evolution of species by means of natural selection can be modelled in a "tree of life" (ToL) that can be traced backwards in...

The asteroid belt

The asteroid belt, a region located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, is composed of millions of rocky objects ranging in size from...

What isn’t Life?

For centuries, mankind has struggled with the problem of defining life. Just what is it? What makes it different from things that are not...

Are We the First: Was There Life Before Our Solar System?

The enduring question is: “Are We the First?” From what we already know of chemistry—especially that of carbon and water—it is highly probable that...

Presentations from the online NoRCEL VII Conference (2024)

BEP2024 presentations and panel discussion

Talks from the LatAM2023 colloquium

Talks from the 5th NoRCEL Virtual Conference
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NoRCEL’s GapMapAn introduction
04:26
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Many Branches on the Tree of Life?? By Nick Nielsen. 5th NoRCEL conference
27:04
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Cometary Phosphorus, by Daniel Boice. 5th NoRCEL confe.
18:20
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Remote Sensing in agriculture applied to Life in the Universe, by Ahya Rezaei. 5th NoRCEL conference
24:33
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Recognition in an RNA polymerase ribozyme, by Razvan Cojocaru. 5th NoRCEL conference
17:45
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Reliable information encoding on genomes of living organisms, by Tamir Tuller. 5th NoRCEL conference
28:07
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Microbial communities for astrobiological research, by Margarita Kriuchkova. 5th NoRCEL conf.
16:15
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Untangling the evolution of biological systems, by Gustavo Caetano-Anollés. 5th NoRCEL conference.
34:30
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Role of periodic stress in the process of life emergence, by Vladimir Kompanichenko. 5th NoRCEL conf
11:17
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Opening for the 5th NoRCEL (Year 2021), by Sohan Jheeta.
14:36
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Catalytic micelles as early nanoscopic protocells, by Doron Lancet. 5th NoRCEL conference.
19:01
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Where was the potassium, [K+], at the origins of Life, by Helen Hansma. 5th NoRCEL conference
10:41
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LactoPS: rapid & cost-effective bacterial-based system for SARS-COV2 testing. Stylianos Magrogkikas
05:46
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Why is Oxia Planum the right landing site for ExoMars 2022? By Jorge Vago. 5th NoRCEL conference.
27:12
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Catalytic properties of chondritic meteorites and OoL, by Josep Trigo Rodríguez. 5th NoRCEL conf
32:34
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tRNA: the molecular demiurge in the origin of biological systems, by Savio T Farias. 5th NoRCEL conf
22:10
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Resolution of the Faint Young Sun Paradox ... & Global Warming, by Golden Nyambuya. 5th NoRCEL conf.
20:32
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Prebiotic synthesis... , by Martin Ferus. 5th NoRCEL conf.
20:43
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The Hot Spring Hypothesis for the Origin of Life, by Bruce Damer. 5th NoRCEL conf.
24:38
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Origins of Life within Big History: Meanings for Humanity, by Lowell Gustafson. 5th NoRCEL conf.
53:12
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Searching for Life with the ExoMars Rover, by Jorge Vago. 5th NoRCEL conf.
42:46