Black hole born and mass extinction

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars – The NASA-led Swift mission has detected and imaged its first gamma-ray burst, likely the birth cry of a brand new black hole. "This is the first time an X-ray telescope has imaged a gamma-ray burst, while it was bursting," the lead scientist says. See article.
g Abodes – For the last three years evidence has been building that the impact of a comet or asteroid triggered the biggest mass extinction in Earth history, but new research from a team headed by a University of Washington scientist disputes that notion. See article.
g Life – Another important piece to the photosynthesis puzzle is now in place. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have identified one of the key molecules that help protect plants from oxidation damage as the result of absorbing too much light. See article.
g Intelligence – Just two minutes of magnetic stimulation can alter the brain for an hour, according to a University of College London study in the Jan. 20 issue of Neuron. The UCL team has been studying methods to improve a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation. They're currently exploring the use of their adapted version of TMS as a possible treatment for Parkinson's disease or stroke. See article.
g Message – SETI research isn’t limited to a single facility listening to radio signals. Another dimension of the program is The Mega-Channel Extraterrestrial Assay, which searched the Southern Hemisphere's skies briefly during the 1990s. To learn more about it, see article.
g Cosmicus – If there is life on Mars, our robotic probes may have brought it there. In 1976, NASA sent two Viking landers to the red planet. They set down on the surface and searched the soil for signs of life. The results were inconclusive. But, what if the spacecraft and others like them brought tiny forms of Earth life to Mars? Could it have survived there? If so, what does this mean for the future exploration of Mars? See article. Note: This article is from 2001.
g Learning – Here’s a neat Web site to introduce kids who go ga-ga over movie aliens to the science of astrobiology.
g Aftermath – What do modern explorations reveal about alien life and the role that humans play in the story of the cosmos? Join internationally recognized planetary scientist David Grinspoon for his lively discussion of recent findings in astrobiology. WBGH recorded the discussion earlier this month in Boston. See audio or video feed.


Get your SF book or manuscript edited