I'm not sure if this has been mentioned previously or not:

Astrobiology Science Conference 2006
Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
Washington, D.C.
March 26-30, 2006

The abstracts for it are now out -- have been for several days, in fact. My apologies for not mentioning them earlier: http://abscicon2006.arc.nasa.gov/agenda.php .

I'm still going through them. I have to say that nothing in them so far has really jumped up and down and wiggled its ears at me -- but, sure enough, there is already interest in the possibility of life on Enceladus. See Parkinson's abstract in http://abscicon2006.arc.nasa.gov/agenda-session.php?sid=9 .

Cold case: Looking for life on Mars

Jonas Dino
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. March 28, 2006
Phone: (650) 207-3280/604-9000
E-mail: jonas.dino@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 06-18AR

THE MOON GETS SPOTLIGHT AT ASTROBIOLOGY CONFERENCE

WHO: The moon, our constant companion, has once again become a focus of the scientific community as NASA prepares to fulfill the Vision for Space Exploration. Scientists at the NASA Astrobiology Science Conference will discuss the moon's role in shaping life on Earth and what secrets it can tell us about the formation of the solar system. The session will also discuss the future of lunar exploration missions. The NASA Astrobiology Science Conference is being held in Washington, March 26 through 30.

Panelists:

o Norm Sleep - Moon as Biological Tape Recorder
o Paul G. Lucey - The Science of the Lunar Polar Volatile Deposits
o James B. Garvin - The Moon as a Natural Laboratory for Cosmic Collisions in Astrobiology
o Lynn Rothschild - The Role of the Moon in Shaping Life on Earth
o G. Scott Hubbard- Exploration Science at the Moon: Links to Understanding Life in the Universe
o Bernard H. Foing - International Lunar Missions: Results and Implications for Astrobiology

WHEN: The session will be held on Wednesday, March 29, at 3 p.m. to 5:40 p.m. EST.

WHERE: Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.

Session location: Reagan Amphitheater

For more information about the NASA Astrobiology Science Conference, visit

http://abscicon2006.arc.nasa.gov/

Astrobiologist Meet In Sweden

Moffett Field CA (SPX) May 30, 2006

In early May, astrobiologists gathered in Sweden to sample smorgasbord and to discuss planetary, space, and life sciences.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Astrobio..._In_Sweden.html

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=680

Astrobiology Lectures Available Online

Centauri Dreams continues to champion innovative tools that get scientific findings out to a broader audience. On that score, be aware of QCShow, a freely downloadable player that synchronizes PowerPoint and PDF presentation materials with audio. We’ve discussed this software before, when QCShow’s parent company, New Mexico-based AICS Research, made sessions from NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts meeting in 2005 available. Now a weekly series of recorded lectures on astrobiology has launched in this format.

Short of attending a conference on astrobiology yourself, it would be hard to top the list of participants here. Planet hunter extraordinaire Geoff Marcy (University of California, Berkeley) leads off with a 52 minute talk entitled “Exoplanets, Yellowstone & the Prospects for Alien Life.” As the discoverer of roughly 70 of the first 100 exoplanets to be found, Marcy’s thoughts on planetary diversity and its implications for life are well worth hearing, but he’s followed up in coming weeks by, among others, names like Greg Laughlin (UC-Santa Cruz), Webster Cash (University of Colorado), David Grinspoon (Southwest Research Institute) and Matt Golombek (Jet Propulsion Laboratory).

The Astrobiology lecture series can be found here, with archives available:

http://aics-research.com/lotw/index.html

QCShow is a fine tool for distributing this kind of presentation — it is a low-bandwidth solution that focuses on what really counts, the slide show delivered by the presenter coordinated with audio of his or her discussion of the material. My own view is that lectures and conference sessions will one day be routinely distributed through downloadable video files (the burgeoning of digital storage makes it all but inevitable, and preferable to bandwidth-hogging streaming techniques), but as we create that infrastructure, QCShow gets the job done now, and is building expertise for the future dissemination of scientific materials.

In the May.June, 2006 issue of The Planetary Report:

The Chance and Necessity of Life: Reflections on AbSciCon 2006

In March, scientists representing different disciplines and different countries gathered together in Washington, DC to discuss the question of whether or not we are alone in the universe. Planetary Report Technical Editor Jim Burke attended the conference and shares his reflections here.

http://planetary.org/programs/planetary_report.html