Abstract:  On August 7th 1996, NASA made the historic announcement that a Martian Meteorite (ALH84001) could contain evidence for past life on Mars. Central to the thesis, and perhaps the most controversial aspect of the findings, were the fossil remnants of sub-bacteria sized "cells" called nanobacteria. While the results were of great scientific interest they fuelled a fierce and highly contentious debate, not only concerning the existence of Martian microbes, but a controversy surrounding the minimum possible size of life on earth. It has remained unresolved to this day whether these mineralised nanobacteria were fossilised remnants of independent life-forms, artefacts of sample preparation or unusual mineral deposits. However, more recently, we reported on the existence of novel nano-organisms (nanobes) growing on Triassic and Jurassic sandstones collected from petroleum exploration boreholes offshore Western Australia. These filamentous and yeast-like cells provide further evidence for nano-scopic life in the same size range as the controversial Martian nanobacteria.  If nanobes are novel life forms as claimed, it forces us to reconsider several eternally fascinating questions. What is life? How did it evolve? Is there life outside the Earth?

Resume:  Dr Philippa Uwins is a Senior Research Fellow at UQ. She has a degree in Geology from the University of Edinburgh (1982) and a PhD in Palynology (the study of organic microfossils) from the University of Aberdeen (1987). She then worked for one year at Robertson Research International's head office in North Wales as a palynologist focussing on Tertiary biostratigraphy of North Sea petroleum reservoirs. She has been at the University of Queensland, Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis since 1989. Her research has focussed on phytoplankton ecology and water quality monitoring, clay mineralogy (resource and petroleum industries), catalyst chemistry, microscopy research and techniques – specialising in Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM) and ultra-high resolution Field Emission SEM (FESEM).