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 - Human-caused global warming—also called “anthropogenic” global warming—is the latest example of life altering Earth, but it is not the most dramatic. See article.
g Intelligence - Bully bosses need to lighten up and wallflower managers would do well to stand up, according to a new study of what makes an effective business leader. See http://www.livescience.com/othernews/070204_boss_basics.html.
g Message - How might we detect an extraterrestrial messenger probe already in the solar system? See http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/WhereAreThey1983.htm. Note: This article is from 1983.
g Learning - The challenge to communicate both the breadth and depth of astrobiology is discussed by Carol Oliver, of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology. As a researcher in communicating science, she considers how best to tell a busy public what it means to explore other worlds for signs of life elsewhere. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/article678.html.
g Imagining - What is panspermia, a concept that appears in a number of science fiction stories, and how plausible is it? See http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/D/dirpans.html.
g Aftermath - Here’s another "old" piece worth reading: "Consequences of Success in SETI: Lessons from the History of Science" (http://www.nidsci.org/articles/steve_dick.php), given during a Bioastronomy Symposium in 1993.
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.