17 November 2023

10:25 – 11:10

Amphithéâtre Faure

Jean-Sébastien Steyer

Jean-Sébastien Steyer has a PhD in paleontology, is a researcher at the CNRS and is attached to the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris. He is one of the few specialists studying life on Earth before the dinosaurs. He has also been working on the reconstruction of extinct species for almost twenty years. The author of numerous scientific articles, this enthusiastic popularizer regularly publishes works that are rapidly becoming benchmarks, such as La Terre avant les dinosaures (2009), Exquise planète (2014), and Demain, les animaux du futur (2015). Between paleontological expeditions to the four corners of the globe, he is also a science columnist for the magazines Pour la science and Espèces.

Conference: Is energy the origin of life?

Along with autonomy and reproduction, energy is one of the fundamental modalities defining living organisms. What sources of energy does life exploit, and how? Diatoms, dinosaurs, daisies: what are the energy issues that concern each species on the living tree? Whether chemotrophic, photosynthetic or super-predatory, “life always finds a way”, said mathematician Ian Malcom in Jurassic Park. This random path involves both light and chemical energy. From the microscopic – with the universal molecule adenosine triphosphate – to the macroscopic – with communities of organisms – everything is matter and energy. Doesn’t life ultimately depend on this fragile balance between the two?