Cosmic safari, oxygen’s gift and what killed the dinosaurs

Welcome! “Alien Life” tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Today’s news:
g Stars - Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have conducted a cosmic safari to seek out a rare galactic species. Their specimens - clusters of galaxies in the very distant universe - are few and far between, and have hardly ever been detected beyond a distance of 7 billion light-years from Earth. See article.
g Abodes - It's common knowledge that humans and other animals couldn't survive without oxygen. But scientists are now learning a good deal more about the extent of our evolutionary debt to a substance that was once a deadly poison. See article.
gLife - The ancient asteroid that slammed into the Gulf of Mexico and purportedly ended the reign of the dinosaurs occurred 300,000 years too early, according to a controversial new analysis of melted rock ejected from the impact site. See article.
g Intelligence - Among chimpanzees and most human populations that subsist on wild resources, hunting is a predominantly male activity, and researchers have long tried to locate the advantage that hunting, a dangerous and tiring activity, brings to men. Though some have argued that good hunters have longer-lasting ties to mates and better-fed offspring, other research suggests that hunting provides an opportunity to garner social attention and increase one's mating prospects, also known as the "showoff hypothesis." See article.
g Message - Whenever the director of SETI research presents a public lecture, she can almost guarantee that “What If everybody is listening and nobody is transmitting?” will be one of the questions the audience asks. See article.
g Cosmicus - Several of the internet's pioneers have recently become space exploration pioneers as well. Paul Allen, cofounder of Microsoft, funded the company that created SpaceShipOne and is financing the construction of the Allen Telescope Array, which will provide dedicated radio telescopes to SETI researchers. Elon Musk, cofounder of PayPal, started SpaceX to develop a series of low-cost expendable rockets. Amazon's Jeff Bezos and id Software's John Carmack are both working on vehicles for space tourism at Blue Origin and Armadillo Aerospace. Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Thawte and the Ubuntu Foundation, also became the first African in space and the second space tourist when he visited the International Space Station in 2002. See article.
g Learning - Here’s a neat Web site in which Monica Grady, head of petrology and meteoritics in the department of mineralogy at the Natural History Museum, presents a comprehensive introduction to astrobiology.
g Imagining - Like first contact stories? Then be sure to read Josepha Sherman’s "A Game of Mehen," anthologized in “First Contact” (edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Larry Segriff, published by DAW in 1997).
g Aftermath - Scientists such as the SETI Institute’s John Billingham and Jill Tarter have taken the lead in planning for the day we might receive a signal from life beyond Earth. Working with diplomats and space lawyers, they have helped develop protocols that guide the activities of SETI scientists who think they may have detected extraterrestrial intelligence. See article. Note: This story is a couple of years old.

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