Ben K. D. Pearce, PhD

2025 LOAR Group photo

Here is our updated database of grants for early careers researchers in all fields. It goes way beyond traditional NIH and NSF funding opportunities. We list 428 types of grants. Download it here: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-op…

@cosmobiologist @Kekius_Sage I'm missing AbSciCon this year for my sister's wedding. Unfortunate timing. But, we shall catch up again in person soon!

@AstroBio_Ben @Kekius_Sage That's honestly a very legit hypothesis on how we could explore Earth's earliest atmospheric chemistry 🤓 If you'll be at AbSciCon, let's get a coffee and chat about the absurd size of the telescope you'd need to make it happen!

How did life actually begin on Earth?

@cosmobiologist @Kekius_Sage I would like to go through a worm hole to a place ~4.4 Gly away, and do transmission spectroscopy with a massive telescope to determine our our early atmospheric composition. It wouldn't determine how life emerged on Earth, but it could at least better guide my experiments! 🙏🏻😄

We may never know. However, two of the best ways, IMO are: We find some old Earth rocks on the Moon that were blasted off the planet early in the process and can tell us something about it. Or, if we're lucky, we have some friendly alien neighbors out there ho've been watching us all this time, and they can tell us how it happened.

We have officially launched the applications for the 2026 BMSIS Young Scientist Program! Those who are eligible from around the world can apply to join our institute this June through August to take part in an internship that includes a research project, learning about ethics, studies in science communication , and more! Learn more and view our available projects for this year here: bmsis.org/ysp/projects/

Purdue astrobiologist reacts to Trump plans to release files on aliens and UFOs starcitytv.com/news/purdue/pu… via @StarCityOnline

BREAKING: Google Gemini just launched a new feature called Guided Learning. You can now use it to learn literally anything, step by step, like a personal tutor. Here’s how to access it 👇

Google presents PaperBanana Automating Academic Illustration for AI Scientists

New sign just dropped. 👌🏻

@silvirouskin I am Assistant to the Regional Professor.

COMEDIC BIT “ So I started as an assistant professor at Harvard, which I thought was a pretty big deal. My dad hears this and goes, “Assistant professor? So… you assist the professor?” I’m like, “No, Dad, that’s the actual job. I am the professor.” And he’s like, “Right, right, but who’s the real professor?” I try to explain the whole academic ladder to him—assistant professor, associate professor, full professor—and he’s looking at me like I’m explaining Starbucks sizes [tall==small] He’s just nodding: “So you’re like the intern of professors. Got it.” It’s the job that finally upgraded me from ‘still studying’ to ‘sort of working’ in my dad’s’ eyes.”

"The fish was this big." 🫸🏻 🫷🏻

PhD Students - Here is an example of a good discussion section. A good discussion section should answer 6 questions. 1. What is different in your findings compared to previous research? 2. What is similar in your findings compared to previous research? 3. How different sections of your results section correlate? 4. What are the implications of your findings for practitioners? 5. What are the implications of your findings for researchers? 6. What are the limitations or threats to the validity of your findings?

We are pleased to advertise an AbSciCon 2026 session on Planetary and Environmental Context for Prebiotic Chemistry. We particularly encourage submissions related to urability (planetary suitability to support an origin of life), related to Mars, early Earth, or elsewhere!

We make recommendations for Dragonfly GC-MS protocol development to include proline, alanine, β-alanine, cysteine, and methionine. The first three offer the best chances for amino acid detection regardless of ammonia availability; the latter two offer diagnostic tools for sulfur.

The NH3-free alanine result implies that there is an alternative pathway to alanine beyond classical Strecker or aminonitrile hydrolysis; one that is based on acetylene (C2H2).

Christmas came early!! Our lab's first publication: Madan & Pearce (2025) was published in Planetary Science Journal today. doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/ae…

rather than humans whose growth you are entrusted to nurture.

Some scientists place academia on a pedestal, as though it were a higher calling that must supersede all else. The danger in this mindset is the tendency to neglect your relationships, push yourself to exhaustion, and treat your students like expendable cogs serving your ambition

I love this take! I absolutely love my job, but it is also just one of many parts of my identity. If I ever lost my job (to AI 😂), I'd be fine.

This is 100% true. Academics in quotes and comments saying it's a privilege or that it's more than a job can't imagine their self-identity and self-respect without academia. Academia is a job like another, but since it's mostly less or unrewarding, one has to tell oneself tales like original knowledge and higher purpose so soothe one's ego.