b'INTRODUCTION TO THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN & THE MEANING OF LIFEA new video mini-series, Andromeda Strain and the Meaning ofLife,setsouttoexploremajorquestionsaround astrobiologyandlifesoriginsthroughimaginative conversations between leading researchers in the field. Traditionally these researchers have shared new insights with the public atSFI s annual InterPlanetary Festival during a panel discussion devoted to Astrobiology and Life Detection. This year, instead of assembling at a largespacecelebration,theseresearcherswillshare their insights, stripped of dense mathematics and theory, in this online, unscripted conversation series.Produced by the InterPlanetary Project, the series tackles one ofSFI s most ambitious and defining research themesthe emergence of life and the possibility that it exists elsewhere in the universe. The late biophysicist Harold Morowitz ( SFIScience Board Chair Emeritus) convened the Institutes inaugural workshop on the origins of life in 1987, and grew it into a multi-institution, National ScienceFoundation-fundedinvestigationthatproduced twoleading,butincomplete,scientificexplanations. Prior to his rigorous work at the Institute, Morowitz co-authored a more speculative letter with Carl Sagan in 1967 that imagined how life forms could survive in the cloud decks of Venus. This idea received a new wave of attentionin2020followingtheindependentdiscovery ofPhosphinegas(oftenassociatedwithlife)inthe Venusian atmosphere. page 2'