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In the final episode of \u201cStar Trek: The Next Generation,\u201d Captain Picard and the godlike entity Q travel to Earth\u2019s ancient past. Volcanoes dominate the landscape, and sulfur fills the air. Q points out a green puddle where a group of amino acids is about to combine and form the first protein, marking the beginning of life on Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is you,\u201d Q says as he dips his hand into the puddle. \u201cEverything you know, your entire civilization, it all begins right here in this little pond of goo.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
At The Planetary Society\u2019s Search for Life Symposium in February 2024, Bet\u00fcl Ka\u00e7ar used an image from this scene in her presentation on how understanding ancient Earth life can help us search for life on other worlds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ka\u00e7ar is an associate professor of bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she and her colleagues are using artificial DNA to reconstruct some of the earliest living organisms and study how they may have evolved into life as we know it today. What they learn will be helpful as we examine the atmospheres of Earthlike exoplanets, looking for signs of life as we know it and how it may have existed billions of years in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs someone who studies the origin of life and its early evolution, I\u2019m interested in connecting what we learn from our past to finding life elsewhere,\u201d Ka\u00e7ar said. \u201c\u2018Star Trek\u2019 has been quite influential.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n