David Lindberg, professor of integrative biology, and Steve Croft, postdoctoral researcher in astronomy, give a public talk in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Darwin's publication of 'On the Origin of Species' and the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first observations of the heavens.

Almost 14 billion years ago, the Big Bang created the seeds of the vast structures that we see in the present-day Universe. But how did a sea of scorching hot gas evolve to form the cosmic web of galaxies, clinging together in huge filaments and sheets, and separated by enormous voids? Modern astronomers use telescopes and computers as time-machines, compressing millions of years of history into the blink of an eye, and studying the inexorable forces that smash galaxies together, fueling the gargantuan black holes at their hearts, and triggering the birth of new stars.

The history of life on earth is unequivocally tied to the stars. Material from space - ashes from the burned-out corpses of previous generations of stars; the complex organic molecules necessary for life; and the comets which brought us the water which makes up our oceans - has rained down upon our planet for billions of years. As well as bringing life, destruction has also come from the skies - massive extinction events were brought about by the impact of extraterrestrial objects. Life on Earth has been largely determined by events beyond our atmosphere.

David R. Lindberg is Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California Berkeley. He is the author of over 100 scientific papers and 3 books on the evolutionary history of the marine organisms and their habitats. He has conducted research and field work for over 30 years around much of the Pacific Rim, and has served as Director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology and Chair of the Department of Integrative Biology.

Steve Croft is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Astronomy at UC Berkeley. After a PhD in Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, he moved to the Bay Area to pursue research on supermassive black holes and their parent galaxies.

This talk is presented as part of the astronomy department's International Year of Astronomy monthly speaker series.