Mars water, frozen lifeform and Hobbit fossil

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 – Among the most elusive and important questions in science are whether we’re alone and what the heck that strange stuff is that’s pushing the universe apart. Neither is likely to be answered anytime soon, yet each occupies many great minds and together they annually drive billions of dollars in research spending. Now wouldn’t it be really weird if these two seemingly unrelated questions were intimately linked? See article.
g Abodes – While most planetary scientists believe water on Mars is the best clue to finding interesting rock samples, there are big questions that remain about where exactly that water may be found. New results give a short list for some who track the water history on the red planet. See article.
g Life – NASA astrobiologist Richard Hoover and a team of researchers have identified a unique new lifeform — a bacterium they dubbed Carnobacterium pleistocenium. But this is no ordinary microorganism. It was found under 32,000-year-old Alaskan ice. And when it was thawed, it immediately sprang back to life. See article.
g Intelligence – Scientists working with powerful imaging computers say the spectacular “Hobbit” fossil recently discovered in Indonesia had distinctive brain features that could justify its classification as a separate — and tiny — human ancestor. The new report, published Thursday in the online journal Science Express, seems to support the idea of a human dwarf species marooned for eons while modern man spread across the planet. See article. Go to additional coverage.
g Message – Here’s a neat piece: an interview with Frank Drake, the astronomer and pioneer who flipped the "on" switch for Project Ozma, the first modern “SETI” project. See article. Note: The interview is from 2000.
g Cosmicus – NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate on Wednesday issued a Request for Proposals for the Crew Exploration Vehicle. The CEV is the spacecraft that will carry astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit and to the moon by 2020. The nation’s Vision for Space Exploration set a goal of developing a new CEV by 2014. The CEV represents one building block in a future exploration architecture that can send astronauts to the moon and form the basis for exploration missions to other destinations. See article.
g Learning – Unfortunately, the controversy over the theory of evolution continues even as science offers all humans a way to know about the natural world and how it works. See article.
g Imagining – Be sure to catch the two-hour special “Dragons” March 20 on the Animal Planet cable channel. The show examines the mythology of dragons and looks at what real prehistoric creatures may have served as their inspiration. It starts at 7 p.m. CST. See article.
g Aftermath – The structure of terrestrial music might provide clues to creating interstellar messages that could be understood by extraterrestrial intelligence. In the process, he suggests that music may provide a means of communicating "something of our consciousness that is essentially human, regardless of the civilization from which it emerges." See article. Note: This article is from 2002.

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