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 - Ever since astronauts returned from the moon, scientists have been mystified by some of the rocks they brought back. Now one of the mysteries has been solved, and the findings provide us with a better understanding of what conditions were like in the earliest years of our solar system. See http://www.astro
bio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload&name=News&file=article&sid
=2154mode=thread&order=0&thold=0. For related story, see “Genesis findings solve Apollo lunar soil mystery” at http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0611/23genesis/.
g Intelligence - A very small number of synesthetes can "taste" words. A new study finds that individuals with this last form of synesthesia — called "lexical-gustatory" synesthesia — can taste a word before they ever speak it, and that the word's meaning, not its sound or spelling, is what triggers this taste sensation. See http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/061122_word_tastes.html.
g Imagining - Like first contact stories? Then be sure to read Vonda N. McIntyre’s “The Starfarers Series”: “Starfarers” (1989), “Transition” (1990), “Metaphase” (1992) and “Nautilus” (1994). In the series, a ship staffed by an international crew goes out to contact alien life. It eventually discovers dying squidmoth, which leads them into further contacts.
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.