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 new study indicates that probes searching for life on Mars will need to dig deep below the planet's surface where living cells might be protected from harsh radiation. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload
&name=News&file=article&sid=2224mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Life - Scientists now reveal the larger the testicles of a rodent are, the more likely the sperm of that species are to curve like a claw [image]. Researchers suggest the sperm use these hooks to snag each other and form speedy "trains" that cooperate to reach the egg first. See http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/070129_rival_sperm.html.
g Message - The next generation of big radio telescopes won't look anything like today's massive dishes. Instead of giant steel constructions towering into the sky, the future will belong to more economical arrays of many small antennas hugging the ground. And, in a historic role reversal, searchers for extraterrestrial intelligence are blazing a trail for conventional radio astronomy to follow. See http://skyandtelescope.com/printable/resources/seti/article_256.
asp.
g Cosmicus - NASA Administrator Michael Griffin recently spoke about the benefits of space exploration at the Quasar Award Dinner in Houston. Here is a copy of his address: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=23189.
g Learning - Here’s a neat classroom activity: “Designer Genes for a Designer World.” In this series of guided inquiry activities, students explore how organisms adapt to their environments through changes in their genetic codes. See http://btc.montana.edu/ceres/astro
biology/LabActivities/DesignerDNA.doc.
g Imagining - Like first contact stories? Then be sure to read Greg Bear’s “Anvil of Stars,” published by Tor in 1992.
g Aftermath - While formal principles have been adopted for the eventuality of detecting intelligent life in our galaxy, no such guidelines exist for the discovery of non-intelligent extraterrestrial life within the solar system. Current scientifically based planetary protection policies for solar system exploration address how to undertake exploration, but do not provide clear guidance on what to do if and when life is detected. Considering that Martian life could be detected under several different robotic and human exploration scenarios in the coming decades, it is appropriate to anticipate how detection of non-intelligent, microbial life could impact future exploration missions and activities, especially on Mars. See http://www.seti.org/atf/cf/{B0D4BC0E-D59B-4CD09E79113953A58644}/m_race_guidelines.pdf.
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.