Black hole bonanza, extinction hotspots and reusable space capsule

Welcome! “Alien Life” tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Today’s news:
g Stars - Data from X-ray observatory surveys show that black holes are much more numerous and evolved differently than researchers would have expected, according to a Penn State astronomer. See article.
g Abodes - If our solar system has a Hell, it's Venus. The air is choked with foul and corrosive sulfur, literally brimstone, heaved from ancient volcanoes and feeding battery-acid clouds above. Although the second planet is a step farther from the sun than Mercury, a runaway greenhouse effect makes it hotter—indeed, it's the hottest of the nine planets, a toasty 900°F of baking basalt flats from equator to poles. All this under a crushing atmospheric pressure 90 times that of where you're sitting now. From the earthly perspective, a dead end. It must be lifeless. See article. Note: This article is from 2005.
g Life - Using the newest geographic, biological, and phylogenetic databases for nearly 4,000 mammal species, researchers have identified 20 regions around the globe as potential extinction hotspots. See article.
g Intelligence - When faced with a new learning task, our brains replay events in reverse, much like a video on rewind, a new study suggests. See article.
g Message - SETI and the University of California at Berkeley decided they needed their own instrument, so they started developing the Allen Telescope Array. See article.
g Cosmicus - Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is asking NASA to help fund the demonstration of a reusable space capsule the El Segundo, Calif.-based company has been developing in secret with its own funding for the past 18 months. See article.
g Learning - Here’s a neat Web site: Sci-fi Magazine, a WebQuest for high school students (science or literature)designed to ask students to critically analyze the use of science in a science fiction novel.
g Imagining - Like first contact stories? Then be sure to read Jane Lindskold’s "Small Heroes," anthologized in “First Contact,” edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Larry Segriff (published by DAW in 1997).
g Aftermath - If we establish communication with a civilization even as close as 100 light years from Earth, the round-trip time for a message and its reply is 200 years. What will be the psychology of a civilization that can engage in a meaningful conversation with this sort of delay? How is such a conversation to be established? What should the content of such a conversation be? See article.

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