Life: From Our Guts to the Galaxy - Speakers

This season, the Planetary Program at the Berggruen Institute joins forces with the Natural History Museum to feature their new discussion series: Life, from Our Guts to the Galaxy: Rethinking the Living World. Moderated by neuroscientist Dr. Yewande Pearse, this collaboration brings together NHM scientists and national experts to explore how life—from the microbes within our bodies to the search for life among the stars—challenges our traditional understanding of health, identity, and the planet itself.

Each monthly program features engaging conversations with scientists and topic experts from NHM and across the country. The season begins on February 6 with a discussion on “Life at the Human Scale,” with each progressive month viewing the topic of “life” through an increasingly wider lens. The kickoff panel will explore how human health, identity, and biology are shaped by the unseen life people rely on every day, and how those relationships challenge the understanding of what it means to be human. The culminating panel will reflect how looking outward into space has reshaped our understanding of biology, evolution, and what it means to be alive.