Stellar fireworks, return to flight and Gorns

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 – Like the annual New Year's fireworks display, astronomers at Gemini Observatory are ushering in 2005 with a striking image that dazzles the eye with stellar pyrotechnics. Among the images: a face-on of spiral galaxy NGC 6946, ablaze with colorful galactic fireworks fueled by the births and deaths of multitudes of brilliant, massive stars. See article.
g Abodes – In a rare change to one of the most basic measurements, scientists say the air around us is heavier than they had thought. See article.
g Life – Scientists working at the leading edge of bionanotechnology have built nanoscale “jigsaw” puzzles made of RNA. Possible applications include the development of nanocircuits, medical implants and improved medical testing. See article.
g Intelligence – A bonobo expert trains the playful creatures — our closest relatives — to respond to voice commands on Animal Planet’s “Champions of the Wild: Bonobos.” The half-hour show airs at 5 a.m. Monday.
g Cosmicus – The huge, orange external tank that will help launch space shuttle Discovery on its next mission isn't glitzy like the crystal New Year's ball in Times Square. But its journey from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility marks something special for 2005: The Return to Flight. See article.
g Learning – NASA’s free Astrobiology Education Poster illustrates in words and pictures the fundamental questions addressed by astrobiology: What is life? Where is it? How do you find it? Three activities have been developed to explore these themes. It’s great for teachers — or parents looking to spend some quality time with their children. See article.
g Imagining – Among the more famous alien races from “Star Trek” are the Gorn, bipedal reptilians who are much larger and stronger than humans. The Gorn are an unlikely alien species but a splendid example of how we so often portray extraterrestrials based not on scientific principles but our own psychology — like the insect alien, most humans naturally find the reptilian alien repulsive. For science fiction, it’s a good choice to create suspense: creatures out of our nightmares that we keep going back to out of a fascination over what frightens us. But could the Gorn evolve on another world? Probably not. The most troubling feature of the Gorn is the remarkable parallel evolution that would have to occur on Gorn Prime to Earth for a few billion years, at least up to our Age of Dinosaurs. Also disconcerting is the Gorn’s snout; this adds weight to the head and with a large brain size creates excessive and unbalanced weight for the neck muscles to hold up. Another problem is the Gorn’s slow movements; certainly a species that evolved to intelligence would have to move a little faster, or it could not succeed in hunting. A caveat here is that its lack of agility may in part have propelled it to intelligence, as it needed to outthink faster moving prey. Some “Star Trek” fans have speculated that Gorn Prime possesses a harsh environment and a relatively high local gravity (1.4 Gs!), which accounts for the Gorn’s increased strength and endurance levels. This seems unlikely, though, as the Gorn then would be able to move swiftly on the asteroid presented in the episode, which Kirk shifts about on as if it were Earth normal gravity.
g Aftermath – Freelance writer Mark Pendergrast examines the folly of the Anthropic Principle this morning in a Vermont newspaper op-ed. See article.

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