Prof. Walter will discuss the chemical processes by which life may arise from non-life. Chemical reactions which occured naturally in the earliest environment of planet Earth may have led to the formation of molecules with the ability to replicate themselves. These self-replicating molecules would compete for molecular building blocks and only the fittest would survive, causing them to evolve by a process of "Darwinian chemistry."

After the lecture, at 9:00, the Student Astronomical Society will hold a free open house including telescopic viewing from the Angell Hall observatory and planetarium shows on the third floor of Angell Hall. For more information click here .

Nils Walter is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan. He pursued graduate studies with Nobel Laureate Manfred Eigen at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, on the guided evolution of nucleic acids in the test tube, and postdoctoral studies with John M. Burke at the University of Vermont on catalytic RNA.