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 Stars - NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes have teamed up to expose the chaos that baby stars are creating 1,500 light-years away in a cosmic cloud called the Orion nebula. See article.
g Abodes - Hazy skies on early Earth could have provided a substantial source of organic material useful for emerging life on the planet, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload
&name=News&file=article&sid=2138mode=thread&order=
0&thold=0.
g Life - Mice genetically altered to literally live a cooler life also lived longer, scientists now report. See http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/061102_cool_mice.html.
g Intelligence - Young children like lucky kids more than the unlucky, according to a new study that hints at one possible reason why social inequality persists. See http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/061107_lucky_people.html.
g Cosmicus - Book alert: Paul Hardersen has written a rare and important book about the exploration of space in “The Case for Space: Who Benefits from Explorations of the Last Frontier (Frontiers in Astronomy and Earth Science, Vol. 3)”. While there is plenty of grand vision and high technology here, his book also shows how space technology makes very personal contributions to the quality of life of people around the world. This book shows how individuals can be a part of advancing the space frontier no matter where they are, as Paul invites you to join the great adventure. See http://www.amazon.com/Case-Space-Explorations-Frontiers-Astronomy/dp/1882360486.
g Imagining - Our eyes constantly flit around, but rather than producing a shaky image like that in a jostled video camera, we perceive a coherent scene. The mechanism behind our steady view has mystified scientists for decades. Now researchers have identified what could be the brain circuit responsible. See http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/
061108_shifty_eyes.html.
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.