A group of lecturers and students at the University of Malta have just submitted four abstracts and posters to the annual European Astrobiology Network Association (EANA) conference which will beheld online on 27-28 August 2020. This is, to our knowledge, the first venture by the University of Malta into this relatively young branch of applied astronomy.
The informal ‘Astrobiology@UM’ group was established in May 2020 and consists of Prof. Kristian Zarb Adami (Institute of Space Science and Astronomy, ISSA), Prof. Joseph Borg (Department of Applied Biomedical Science), Josef Borg (PhD candidate at ISSA), Maria Aquilina (BSc student in Physics and Mathematics), Andrea Francesca Bellia (MSc student in Biology) and Dr Sandro Lanfranco (Department of Biology). Participation in the EANA conference marks the first formal activity of this group.
The papers accepted for the conference were the following:
- Aquilina, M., Bellia, A.F., Meekers, L., Borg, J., Borg, J., Zarb Adami, K., Lanfranco, S. (2020). A preliminary assessment of the effects of EM radiation on eubacterial genomes.
- Bellia, A.F., Aquilina, M., Lanfranco, S., Borg, J., Borg, J., Zarb Adami, K. (2020). Looking to the past to predict the future: Tardigrade resistance - a model example.
- Borg, J., Sinagra, E., Ciarlo’, J., Aquilina, N., Zarb Adami, K., Aquilina, M., Bellia, A.F., Borg, J. Lanfranco, S. (2020). The evolution of Titan’s atmosphere under a reddening sun.
- Lanfranco, S., Bellia, A.F., Aquilina, M., Borg, J., Zarb Adami, K. & Borg, J. (2020). “No moon is an island"...or is it? Investigating the possibility of metacommunity dynamics in the Solar System.