Two days after starting work as the new director of INDS, Stephen Freeland traveled to Washington DC to present a public lecture on the emerging science surrounding the possibility of other life in the universe. This lecture was invited by the Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion (DoSER) program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which welcomed a diverse group of politicians, scientists and members of the general public to a Q&A about the implications of this work.

The research about which Dr. Freeland spoke falls under the emerging science of astrobiology (https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about-astrobiology/) which, by placing together insights from the traditional scientific disciplines, is rapidly forming a consensus picture that life should not be as rare as was once thought. In fact the focal point of the lecture were "three clues consistent with extraterrestrial life."

A full description of this event, together with a video of the event, can be found here:

www.aaas.org/spp/dser/events/archives/lectures/2013/Exoplanets/Exoplanets6_19_2013.html