Welcome! “Alien Life” tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. You may notice that this and future entries are shorter than usual; Career, family and book deal commitments have forced me to cut back some of my projects. Now, here’s today’s news:
g Abodes - A meteor explosion was recorded over the Oslo Fjord area of Norway last month, Aftenposten reported Friday. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.phpfeed=Science&article=
UPI12006071500350700bcnorwaymeteor.xml.
g Life - The high-pitched whine of a mosquito might drive you nuts, but it's music to the ears of these little pests. See http://www.
livescience.com/animalworld/060710_mosquito_buzz.html.
g Intelligence - Researchers have uncovered new evidence that sleep improves the brain's ability to remember information. Their findings demonstrate that memories of recently learned word pairs are improved if sleep intervenes between learning and testing and that this benefit is most pronounced when memory is challenged by competing information. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases
/2006/07/060711095912.htm.
g Cosmicus - The mission of Bigelow Aerospace's revolutionary prototype space habitat launched Wednesday has gone smoothly through its first day in orbit. The program's founder said the success achieved so far has been an exhilarating experience for his team before they set off to begin a comprehensive testing regimen on the inflatable space station pathfinder. See http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0607/14bigelow/.
The Drake Equation
This formula estimates the number of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy.N=(R*)(Ns)(Fp)(Ne)(Fl)(Fi)(Fc)(L)
Where:- N = Number of civilizations we can communicate with
- R* = Average star formation rate
- Ns = Percentage of stars capable of supporting earth-like planets
- Fp = Percentage of those stars with planets
- Ne = Average umber of planets in those stars' habitable zones
- Fl = Percentage of those planets where life begins
- Fi = Percentage of planets with life where an intelligent species evolves
- Fc = Percentage of those intelligent species that develop communication technology
- L = Average lifetime, in years, of a civilization that develops such technology
About Me
- Rob Bignell
- I'm the owner and chief editor at Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the editing and proofreading needs of writers both new and published. For more than two decades, I worked as an award-winning journalist, with half of those years spent as an editor. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres have been published, and I am the author of the nonfiction “Hikes with Tykes” series, a novel "Windmill", and a collection of poetry, "Love Letters to Sophie's Mom". For seven years I worked as an English teacher or a community college journalism instructor. I hold a master's degree in English and a bachelor's in journalism and English.