Ever since my pre-university trip to Japan, it holds a special place in my heart. So I was excited to get invited to talk at the Origins of Life workshop at ELSI on June 2013, and present the recent studies of the Lipid World.

The puzzles of the origins of life are grand and exciting research challenges, and it is certainly a wonderful time to be graduating a Ph.D. degree in this field. Harvard's initiative, Simons Foundation collaboration and, especially ELSI are definitely going to shape the scientific and public perspective on what are the origin of Earth and life. Never before has this field received so much support, the impact of which will surely become apparent in the years and decades to come.

I was welcomed into Tokyo Tech. and Japan and found it to be as unique as I remembered. I did not miss an opportunity to try new foods (my Facebook wall has the pictures to prove it) and in the weekend I explored different parts of Tokyo. However, my strongest memory from this visit is something else.

Microscopic images of water from 3,500,000,000 years ago

In remembering a loved one, we often keep a piece of jewelry or a photo, which is passed on from parents to children to grandchildren. While at ELSI, I was presented with a variety of research but what captured my mind was one particular unforgettable image: Yuichiro Ueno had shown us a memorabilia from the time of the origin of life - from our own 'grand grandmother', so to speak. This memorabilia was in the form of microscopic images of ancient water, sloshing around in tiny pores of certain minerals that were billions of years old, formed at a time that the Earth was less than half its current age. With water sealed off for those billions of years, the contents of these pores form "water fossils." In other words, these minerals form a time machine, showing us the environmental conditions of that time.

To know that Yuichiro was handling what may be the world's oldest remaining water was, simply, awesome. And, as if that was not enough to capture our mind, the water in his presented image was wobbling, as if to show and remind us of its life.

Note from editor of blog: To find out more about associate PI Yuichiro Ueno's research, please take a look at his ELSI personal page.