Twin-star systems, predator-prey relationships and ‘The Listeners’

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 - The double sunset that Luke Skywalker gazed upon in the film "Star Wars" might not be a fantasy. Astronomers working on the search for distant, Earth-like planets have observed that planetary disks, which harbor asteroids, comets and possibly planets, are at least as abundant in twin-star systems as they are in single-star systems like our own. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload&
name=News&file=article&sid=2286mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Abodes - A serene orb of ice is set against the gentle pastel clouds of giant Saturn in a new Cassini spacecraft image. Rhea transits the face of the gas giant, whose darkened rings and their planet-hugging shadows appear near upper right. See http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/070328rhea.html. For related stories, see “Unusual Hyperion” at http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/070328hyperion.html.
g Life - Two new studies, detailed in the March 22 issue of the journal Nature, suggest predator-prey relationships, as well as the timing and relative order of a species' arrival into a new environment, can greatly affect how rapidly this branching process occurs. See http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/070321
_adaptive_radiation.html.
g Intelligence - Distractions turn on different part of our brains and do so more quickly than the daily grind of paying attention, neuroscientists have discovered. See http://www.livescience.com/
humanbiology/070329_brain_regions.html.
g Message - A lot of science fiction doesn’t offer a particularly accurate description of SETI. Here’s one piece that does: James Gunn’s novel “The Listeners,” published by Signet in 1972. This offers a good early portrayal of a scientifically reasonable search.
g Cosmicus - A European craft designed to ferry science experiments, fuel and other supplies to the international space station will launch this fall, several months later than originally planned, officials said last week. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/25atv1/.
g Learning - Here’s a neat classroom activity courtesy of DiscoverSchool.com: “Extraterrestrials.” In the activity, a digital radio message, intended to alert any intelligent life in space to the existence of intelligent life on Earth, has been electronically transmitted into space by the Arecibo radio dish in Puerto Rico. Students must ensure the message is effective by showing that the senders (humans from Earth) are capable of advanced thinking — but it must not depend on the ability of extraterrestrials to understand any Earth language. See http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/
programs/extraterrestrials/extraterrestrials.rtf.
g Imagining - Like stories about efforts to communicate with alien? Then be sure to read Fred Hoyle’s "A for Andromeda" (1962). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_for_Andromeda.
g Aftermath - The scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence is accelerating its pace and adopting fresh strategies. This increases the likelihood of successful detection in the near future. Humanity's first contact with alien intelligence will trigger extraordinary attention from the media, from government authorities, and from the general public. By improving our readiness for contact, especially for security during the first 30 days, we can avoid the most negative scenarios — and also enhance humanity's benefits from this first contact with an alien intelligence. Six potential problem areas include communicating with the media and the public, communicating with scientific colleagues, government control, an assassin or saboteur, well-meaning officials and lawsuits. See http://ieti.org/articles/security.htm.

Diversification of mammals, search for life in the universe (for kids) and life on a neutron star

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 challenges the classic idea that the mass extinction of the dinosaurs played a major role in the diversification of mammals. The study may shed new light on the connections between Earth's climate and the evolution of life.
See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload&
name=News&file=article&sid=2285mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Life - The fossil of an ancient amphibious reptile with a crocodile's body and a fish's tail has been unearthed in Oregon. Scientists believe the creature's remains were transported by geologic processes nearly 5,000 miles away from where it originally died more than 100 million years ago. See http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/070321_jurassic_croc.html.
g Message - Modern Exobiology and Astrobiology studies now being sponsored by NASA, with participation by other nations and academia, are doing more than just ponder the probabilities of extraterrestrial life. Technological and human resources are being invested in remote-sensing efforts like the Terrestrial Planet Finder and robotic probe missions to search, in-situ, for clear signs of ET life on Mars, Europa and other promising solar system bodies. To further enhance and broaden the search for ETI, it’s now time to invest in methods, such as SETV, which search for clear evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence locally to aid in proving we are not alone in the universe. See www.interstellar-probes.org/SETI/JBIS-SETV1.pdf.
g Learning - This module, from the Japan Science and Technology Corporation, provides excellent background to the search for life in the universe, for kids. There is information about all the planets in the solar system and possibilities for life beyond, as well as descriptions of spacecraft and signals that originate from Earth (requires Flash plug-in). See http://jvsc.jst.go.jp/universe/et_e/index_e.htm.
g Imagining - Like stories about alien biologies/environments? Be sure to scour your favorite used bookstores for Robert L. Dragon's "Egg" (1980), which describes life on a neutron star.
g Aftermath - “If we are able to find one extraterrestrial civilization, we should be able to find many,” according to the paper “Networking with our Galactic Neighbors.” “By the year 3000 either we will have abandoned the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or we will have made progress networking with other civilizations in our galaxy. One alternative is that we will first detect a civilization that, like our own, has not yet confirmed the existence of other distant civilizations. This success will accelerate our search efforts and put us in touch, one by one, with many more extraterrestrial societies. Under this alternative we would be founding members of the Galactic Club, that is the largest network of communicating civilizations within our galaxy. Another alternative is that our initial contact will be with a civilization that is already affiliated with the Galactic Club, with the result that we ourselves are offered membership. Whether we help build the first network of civilizations or are inducted into a pre-existing network could have profound implications for Humanity 3000.” For more, read http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:WWP5W8vC1zYJ:www.bigelowaerospace.com/fff-galactic-club.doc+consequences+of+contacting+extraterrestrial+life&hl=en. Note: This paper was released in 2000.

Science vs. exploration, astrobiology in our schools and contemplating humankind's first contact with intelligent extraterrestrials

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 Life - Two new raptor dinosaur species have been unearthed in Mongolia, including one that ranks among the smallest non-avian dinosaurs ever discovered. See http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/070323_new_raptors.html.
g Message - Interstellar spacecraft are superior to electromagnetic wave propagation for extrasolar exploration and communication. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence should include a search for extraterrestrial probes. See http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/The
CaseForInterstellarProbes1983.htm. Note: This article is from 1983.
g Cosmicus - Which is a better investment, science or exploration? The question is almost as old as the space program itself, and answering it won’t get any easier as humans move toward establishing a lunar base. But could science be an inevitable outgrowth of exploration? The exploration needed to occupy the moon will give us plenty of opportunities for basic lunar science. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload&
name=News&file=article&sid=2284mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Learning - What are SETI scientists doing to foment the study and understanding of astrobiology in our schools? See http://space.com/searchforlife/seti_phspace_051117.html.
g Imagining - Could "Star Trek"'s Alfa 177 canine (for a picture, see http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TOS/episode/ 68670.html) exist? Setting aside the facial features that show the canine is an Earth-descended vertebrate, the answer is yes. The Alfa 113 biome the Enterprise crew visits is cold but dry, perhaps a summer plain set below a great continental ice sheet. In cold climates, life forms need to be compact and/or covered in thick hair or fat; this is so with this creature. In addition, the canine's short legs indicate it need not worry about snowdrifts. Based on the creature's canine teeth and jaw structure, it must be a predator; considering the canine's size, it likely preys on creatures no larger than rats - and rodents are quite abundant on the tundra. A lack of claws indicates it doesn't burrow, however, which probably would be necessary in such a climate. Perhaps caves in the area or other creature's burrows provide shelter. As for the antenna upon its head, I'll withhold speculation!
g Aftermath - Book alert: Science fiction writers have given us many fine novels contemplating humankind's first contact with intelligent extraterrestrials. But our nonfiction world has not thought much about what to do if we are actually faced with this situation. In “Extraterrestrial Intelligence,” Jean Heidmann, chief astronomer at the Paris Observatory (and self-styled bioastronomer), offers a book on the subject that is at once serious and fun. Heidmann's obvious joy in raw speculation - all of it grounded in real science - is contagious. If aliens send us a message from many light years away, for example, how should we respond? Heidmann reviews the protocols established in the SETI Declaration and then offers his own suggestion: send them the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica. See http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521585635/102-7953720-3747358?n=283155.

Music’s effect on communication, 'Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known’ and trusting the government during first contact

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 - An odd, six-sided, honeycomb-shaped feature circling the entire north pole of Saturn has captured the interest of scientists with the Cassini mission. "This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides," says one team member. "We've never seen anything like this on any other planet. See article.
g Life - An underground den of dinosaurs now reveals the first evidence that at least one species of “terrible lizards” could burrow. See http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/070323_digging_dino
saurs.html.
g Intelligence - Scientists have uncovered the first concrete evidence that playing music can significantly enhance the brain and sharpen hearing for all kinds of sounds, including speech. See http://www.
livescience.com/humanbiology/070319_music_brainstem.html.
g Message - Dan Werthimer, director of the SERENDIP SETI program and chief scientist of SETI@home at the University of California Berkeley, predicts we’ll make first contact with an alien civilization in 50-100 years. See http://www.astroseti.org/danweng.php. Note: This article is from 2004.
g Learning - “’Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.’ – Carl Sagan.” These are the words on the back of more than 200 T-shirts the SETI Institute donated to Cosmos Education – a grass-roots non-profit dedicated to science and technology education and the role of science and technology in health, the environment and sustainable development. The model is simple – seeking to engage, empower and inspire youth in developing countries through hands-on learning activities and experiments. Students learn about the molecular structure of water by pretending to be oxygen and hydrogen atoms; they learn about how soap works by doing experiments with soap, water and oil; they learn about the HIV virus by constructing a human chain model of DNA. These and our many other activities capture the curiosity of students and get them asking questions about the world in which they live. See http://space.com/searchforlife/seti_cosmoseducation_050512.html.
g Imagining - Another early “Star Trek” alien is the Exo III android makers. We really don’t know what the android creators (aka “the Old Ones”) looked like, but we can presume by the way human duplicates were created with the android-making machine that they appear like Ruk (go to http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TOS/episode/68680.html and click on “Ruk is shot by phaser”). Their height indicates that the planet’s gravity is slightly lighter than Earth’s, and there isn’t a discernable difference in the way humans step on this world. Possibly the savanna grass was taller than in our Africa (their hominid shape indicates a primate-oriented evolution). The whitish pallor probably is due to the lack of sunlight (though not the cold, as that also would make their bodies more compact); the aliens did go underground when a global ice age gripped their world. One interesting question is if they possessed the ability to build androids, why didn’t they just leave their planet when its habitability was lowered? Perhaps some religious or cultural belief prevented them from considering or pursuing space travel; possibly they developed the android-making machine when residing underground. While the show’s creators did a good job of making the Old Ones evolutionarily sound given the world’s climate of the past several eons, the aliens fall short on the Earth vertebrate factor: It’s highly unlikely that the exact facial arrangements as those of Earth’s vertebrates when first leaving the water for land would be so exactly duplicated.g Aftermath - Would dutiful American citizens trust the government to handle first contact with extraterrestrials and rush to get information to the public? See http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/1999/Jun-11-Fri-1999/news/11331065.html. Note: This article is from 1999.

Recombination hotspots, interplanetary supply chains and political significance of discovering extraterrestrial intelligence

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 Life - USC College computational biologist Peter Calabrese has developed a new model to simulate the evolution of so-called recombination hotspots in the genome. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/0703
19114440.htm.
g Intelligence - Whether you get stung by a bee or simply watch as a friend gets stung, you might start to run and hide every time a bee buzzes across your path. A new study reveals why you do this: It turns out the brain areas that respond when fear is learned through personal experience are also triggered when we see someone else afraid. See http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/070320_fear_learning.html.
g Cosmicus - Researchers have developed a software tool for modeling interplanetary supply chains in order to better understand the requirements for establishing human bases on the Moon and beyond. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload&
name=News&file=article&sid=2282mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Learning - High performance schools integrate the best in today's design strategies and building technologies. Even better, they make a difference in the way children learn. Research has shown that better buildings produce better student performance, reduce operating costs and increase average daily attendance. They also are more likely to maintain teacher satisfaction and retention and reduce liability exposure. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070319175809.htm.
g Imagining - A short entry on the early “Star Trek” alien Balok: Creatively speaking, this alien was a disappointment compared to the previously presented Alfa 117 canine and salt vampire. Balok only possesses two real visual differences from humans: He’s shorter and possesses more child-like features (teeth and facial). As to the first trait, of height, Balok may come from a planet with heavier gravity than Earth. Or perhaps there was shorter grass on the savanna (his hominid frame indicates a primate-styled path to intelligence), so height actually may be an evolutionary disadvantage on his world. Possibly his planet is slightly cooler, as that would encourage stockier traits, though the shapes of his nostrils don’t indicate his kind regularly breathes cold air, nor does the Enterprise crew note or physically show that they’re on a cold ship. As to the second trait, of child-like features, presumably it holds some evolutionary advantage (after all, adults even in smaller mammals appear much more angular in their faces than their infants), though not enough hints were provided to offer speculation. Any ideas out there?
g Aftermath - How might we characterize the political significance of any announcement of discovering extraterrestrial intelligence? How about using the Torino Scale, which characterizes asteroid impacts, as a model to assist the discussion and interpretation of any claimed discovery of ETI? See http://64.233.167.104/searchq=cache:
BuuaRaF64gUJ:www.konkoly.hu/staff/almar/almar_rio.doc+"Interpreting
+and+Reporting+on+a+SETI+discovery"&hl=en.

Milky Way’s history, plate tectonics at 3.8 billion B.C.E. and exopolitics

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 - Astronomers are using the chemical signatures of stars to determine which formation sites they have in common. The research will help unravel the history of the Milky Way and ultimately it can teach us about how galaxies form and evolve. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload&
name=News&file=article&sid=2280mode=thread&order=
0&thold=0.
g Abodes - Identification of the oldest preserved pieces of Earth's crust in southern Greenland has provided evidence of active plate tectonics as early as 3.8 billion years ago, according to a report by an international team of geoscientists in the March 23 edition of Science magazine. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070322191123.htm.
g Life - Biologists at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Bonn in Germany have produced a global map of estimated plant species richness. Covering several hundred thousand species, the scientists say their global map is the most extensive map of the distribution of biodiversity on Earth to date. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070320191114.htm.
g Intelligence - Recent work in the study of dreaming indicates that more than just subconscious entertainment is going on. Sleep appears to help us work through and understand events of the day. Sleep also seems to provide a mechanism for impressing important memories on the brain, to make sure we have a long-term record of an event or concern. Sleep also seems to have a role in learning a skill; people who practiced a skill and then slept on it were more skillful than those who had not yet had a chance to sleep. See http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffiction/070323_robot_sleep.html.
g Message - Most SETI programs scan the sky looking for strong radio signals. Any signals that are deemed interesting are put on a list for follow-up observations weeks, months — even years later. Long delays in verification of potential ET signals sometimes generate tantalizing, but ultimately frustrating, stories. See http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_backus_rhythm_030320.html. Note: This article is from March 2003.
g Cosmicus - As NASA makes plans to send humans back to the moon, this time to live and work for extended periods of time, one of the most vexing problems they may be faced with is dust. To explore the potential problems, the NASA Engineering and Safety Center held a Lunar Dust Workshop. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload&
name=News&file=article&sid=2281mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Learning - Although exobiology is of widespread interest to high school science students, it is not generally dealt with comprehensively in most textbooks. In addition, teachers often have inadequate resources available to prepare classroom presentations on how life may have begun on Earth and whether these processes might take place elsewhere in the solar system and the universe. Here’s a classroom teaching module suitable for use in both general and advanced high school biology courses: See http://www.gecdsb.on.ca/d&g/astro/html/Exobiology.html.
g Imagining - Like stories about alien anthropology and cultures? Scour your used bookstore or local library for Robert Holdstock’s “Eye Among the Blind” (1976), in which an anthropologist becomes identified with an alien culture.
g Aftermath - I offer the following Web site entry on “exopolitics” only as a basis for us to think about how people might react once we know an extraterrestrial civilization exists: http://www.loper.org/~george/trends/2004/Jun/950.html. Certainly many will give ufology more credence and make fantastical conclusions based upon images in the popular media. Question: How do we counteract this now? Obviously we want people discussing the topic of “exopolitics,” even if it’s in a vacuum. But how do we move beyond silly paranormal notions?

Large brains and cool climates, good and bad news for science and ‘Philosophical Implications of the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life’

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 - In 2002, when astronomers first detected cosmic gamma rays — the most energetic form of light known — coming from the constellation Cygnus they were surprised and perplexed. The region lacked the extreme electromagnetic fields that they thought were required to produce such energetic rays. But now a team of theoretical physicists propose a mechanism that can explain this mystery and may also help account for another type of cosmic ray, the high-energy nuclei that rain down on Earth in the billions. See article.
g Abodes - In a David and Goliath story of Saturnian proportions, the little moon Enceladus is weighing down giant Saturn's magnetic field so much that the field is rotating slower than the planet. This phenomenon makes it nearly impossible to measure the length of the Saturn day using techniques that work at the other giant planets. See http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/070322enceladus.html.
g Life - Why are male ungulate antlers and horns so large? Darwin, when proposing his theory of evolution and sexual selection, suggested that the size of male ungulate antlers and horns may reflect male individual quality, and thereby be used by conspecifics as an honest signal of male sexual vigor, health, strength, hierarchical status, or ability to fight. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070319114501.htm.
g Intelligence - Early humans developed larger brains as they adapted to colder climates, according to University at Albany researchers. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070322142633.htm.
g Message - Visiting another civilization on a distant world would be fascinating, but at present such a trip is beyond our capabilities. However, it is perfectly within our capabilities to develop a communications system using a powerful transmitter and a sensitive receiver, and using it to search the sky for alien worlds whose citizens have a similar inclination. See http://www.vectorsite.net/taseti.html.
g Learning - People in the United States know more about basic science today than they did two decades ago, good news that researchers say is tempered by an unsettling growth in the belief in pseudoscience such as astrology and visits by extraterrestrial aliens. See http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-02-18-science-smarts_x.htm?POE=TECISVA.
g Aftermath - Book alert: The authentic discovery of extraterrestrial life would usher in a scientific revolution on par with Copernicus or Darwin, says Paul Davies in “Are We Alone?: Philosophical Implications of the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life.” Just as these ideas sparked religious and philosophical controversy when they were first offered, so would proof of life arising away from Earth. With this brief book (160 pages, including two appendices and an index), Davies tries to get ahead of the curve and begin to sort out the metaphysical mess before it happens. Many science fiction writers have preceded him, of course, but here the matter is plainly put. This is a very good introduction to a compelling subject. For reviews, see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465004199/104-0950202-4931164?v=glance.

Why 2003 EL61 matters, earliest example of limb loss and signaling across space

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 released on Wednesday never-before-seen images that show the sun's magnetic field is much more turbulent and dynamic than previously known. The international spacecraft Hinode, formerly known as Solar B, took the images. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/21hinode/.
g Abodes - In the outer reaches of the solar system, there is an object known as 2003 EL61 that looks like and spins like a football being drop-kicked over the proverbial goalpost of life. New findings could make it one of the most important of the Kuiper-belt objects for understanding the workings of the solar system. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/17kbo/.
g Life - It wouldn't have been the easiest way to get around. A University of Alberta paleontologist has helped discover the existence of a 95 million-year-old snakelike marine animal, a finding that provides not only the earliest example of limb loss in lizards but also the first example of limb loss in an aquatic lizard. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070322132848.htm.
g Intelligence - While as recently as 20 years ago, scientists considered it taboo to describe animal behavior in the same terms as human thoughts and emotions, however, recent studies suggest that chimps and other primates have the ability to show empathy. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.phpfeed=Science&article=UPI-1-20070323-15471700-bc-us-chimps.xml.
g Message - When it comes to signaling across space, power is paramount. See http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_targeted_040401.html. Note: This article is from 2004.
g Learning - Scientists have, for the first time, induced difficulties with mathematics (dyscalculia) in subjects who normally find math easy. The study, which finds that the right parietal lobe is responsible for dyscalculia, potentially has implications for diagnosis and management through remedial teaching. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070322132931.htm.
g Aftermath - Book alert: As many Earthlings already know —including more than 2 million computer users with firsthand experience — our best hope for finding extraterrestrial intelligence might just lie with an ingenious little screensaver. So it's not surprising that Brian McConnell’s “Beyond Contact: A Guide to SETI and Communicating with Alien Civilizations,” an introduction to searching for and communicating with intelligent life, begins with some of the details behind the University of California-Berkeley's groundbreaking, massively distributed SETI@home project, which processes intergalactic noise for pennies on the teraflop. But that's just the start of the story. Inventor and software developer McConnell continues with an overview of whether and why we might find something out there, who's doing what to look for it (including the folks at Berkeley), and — once some ET picks up on the other end — what we might say and how we might say it.

Beneath the Martian soil, interplanetary supply chain and free Astrobiology Education Poster

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 - There's a lot of ice beneath the surface of Mars, and some believe there could be liquid water as well. NASA and European Space Agency spacecraft are now using ground-penetrating radar to peek under the Martian soil. In this interview, Jeff Plaut discusses the latest findings of ESA’s MARSIS radar. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload&name
=News&file=article&sid=2274mode=thread&order=0&thold=0.
g Message - During the early 1980s, David Brin offered an explanation for Fermi’s Paradox, which asked why if extraterrestrial life existed it wasn’t on Earth. Brin’s answer: The Zoo Hypothesis. Here’s a copy of that groundbreaking paper, “The 'Great Silence': The Controversy Concerning Extraterrestrial Life “ at http://brin-l.stock-consulting.com/downloads/silence.pdf.
g Cosmicus - If you think shipping freight from Cincinnati to El Paso is challenging, imagine trying to deliver an oxygen generation unit from the Earth to a remote location on the moon. By 2020, NASA plans to establish a long-term human presence on the moon, potentially centered on an outpost to be built at the rim of the Shackleton crater near the lunar South Pole. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/22supplychain/.
g Learning - NASA’s free Astrobiology Education Poster illustrates in words and pictures the fundamental questions addressed by astrobiology: What is life? Where is it? How do you find it? Three activities have been developed to explore these themes. It’s great for teachers — or parents looking to spend some quality time with their children. See http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/poster/index.cfm.
g Aftermath - How might we characterize the political significance of any announcement of discovering extraterrestrial intelligence? How about using the Torino Scale, which characterizes asteroid impacts, as a model to assist the discussion and interpretation of any claimed discovery of ETI? See http://64.233.167.104/searchq=cache:
BuuaRaF64gUJ:www.konkoly.hu/staff/almar/almar_rio.doc+"Interpret
ing+and+Reporting+on+a+SETI+discovery"&hl=en.

Quark star, Enceladus’ geysers and living laboratory for astrobiologists

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 - A decade-long mystery has been solved using data from ESA's X-ray observatory XMM-Newton. The brightest member of the so-called “magnificent seven” has been found to pulsate with a period of seven seconds. The discovery casts some doubt on the recent interpretation that this object is a highly exotic celestial object known as a quark star. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/11neutronstars/.
g Abodes - A hot start billions of years ago might have set into motion the forces that power geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/12enceladus/.
g Life - Cuatro Cienegas, a butterfly-shaped valley in Mexico’s Chihuahua desert, is a living laboratory for astrobiologists. By studying this unique and endangered ecosystem, they hope to learn more about the earliest life on Earth. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload
&name=News&file=article&sid=2277mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Message - Book alert: The father-son team of David E. Fisher and Marshall Jon Fisher brings the study of extraterrestrial life down to earth in “Strangers in the Night: Brief History of Life on Other Worlds,” an informative and entertaining book. In the anecdotal style that is their hallmark, the Fishers trace humankind’s attempts to discover life on other worlds. This informative and entertaining book tells the story of humankind’s attempts throughout history to discover extraterrestrial life. See http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1887178872
/boggysgeologylin/20292899029087057.
g Learning - Here’s a neat classroom activity courtesy of DiscoverSchool.com: “Extraterrestrials.” In the activity, a digital radio message, intended to alert any intelligent life in space to the existence of intelligent life on Earth, has been electronically transmitted into space by the Arecibo radio dish in Puerto Rico. Students must ensure the message is effective by showing that the senders (humans from Earth) are capable of advanced thinking — but it must not depend on the ability of extraterrestrials to understand any Earth language. See http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/
programs/extraterrestrials.rtf.
g Aftermath - Could religions survive contact with extraterrestrials? The Medieval Church didn't think so, as the discovery would challenge mankind's central role in the cosmos. Today such ideas are considered old fashioned, and many theologians welcome the discovery of life — even intelligent life — among the stars. But if scientists were to find microscopic Martians or a signal from another world, would established religions really take it in stride? For a discussion, check out this past program of SETI’s “Are We Alone?” at http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter2.aspc=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=
289154. Note: An mp3 player is required to play the audio files; you can download one at the site for free.

Dwarf galaxy, magnetic reconnection and societal implications of astrobiology

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 - An Australian scientist says a "giant" galaxy 140 million light years from Earth is actually a much closer "dwarf" galaxy. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.phpfeed=Science&article=UPI-1-20070316-22140200-bc-australia-astronomy.xml.
g Abodes - Plasma physicists have made an unprecedented measurement in their study of the Earth's magnetic field. Thanks to the European Space Agency's Cluster satellites they detected an electric field thought to be a key element in the process of “magnetic reconnection.” See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/14cluster/.
g Life - Fossil remains have revealed a new svelte, squirrel-like mammal that scurried around in the wee hours of the night snagging insects and worms about 125 million years ago. See http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/070314_mammal_ear.html.
g Message - Recent discussions within the SETI community have thoroughly explored the issue of whether people with access to radio telescopes should send powerful signals to alien civilizations without some process of prior international consultation. In particular, those exchanges have focused on the question of "Active SETI." See http://www.setileague.org/editor/actvseti.htm.
g Learning - "Teacher, why do I need to learn this?" "What’s it good for?" Students ask these questions when faced with content that seems unrelated to their lives. Motivating students is fundamental to promoting achievement in any classroom, even in science, which encompasses the entire natural world, the whole universe. Good questions and quality experiences support science learning for all students, not just those who are already science-friendly. The relatively new discipline of astrobiology asks great questions that intrigue students. See http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_devore_why_040408.html.
g Aftermath - What are the societal implications of astrobiology? A NASA workshop in 1999 set out to determine what they might be. Here’s their report: http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/workshops/societal/.

Vernal equinox arrives, first 3D visualization of a complete eukaryotic cell and a sign of alien intelligence

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:
- Stars - A month ago, my daffodils began blooming, and I knew that spring was coming. But now it’s official. On March 21 at 00 07 UT (universal time), the Earth spins through the vernal equinox. It’s that special moment in our annual trek around the Sun that marks the beginning of spring. Seen from Earth, the Sun is crossing the celestial equator headed north. Here in the United States, it’s still March 20 at that moment, and so we’re celebrating the first day of spring on March 20, and you’re invited to celebrate “Sun-Earth Day.” See http://space.com/searchforlife/070315_seti_sun.html.
g Abodes - The Long Range Reconnaissance Imager on New Horizons captured another dramatic picture of Jupiter's moon Io and its volcanic plumes, 19 hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter on Feb. 28. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/14iovolcano/.
g Life - Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and the University of Colorado have now obtained the first 3D visualization of a complete eukaryotic cell at a resolution high enough to resolve the cytoskeleton's precise architectural plan in fission yeast. The image of this unicellular organism will be published in this week's issue of the journal Developmental Cell and reveals remarkable insights into the fine structure of the cytoskeleton as well as its interactions with other parts of the cell. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070306101110.htm.
g Message - What would be a sign of alien intelligence? Forget mathematics — try a simple, pure-tone radio signal. See http://
www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_artificiality_part2_030220.html.
g Cosmicus - NASA notified the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory last week that its contract to build a robotic lunar lander would be allowed to expire at the end of March and would not be renewed — at least not anytime soon. See http://space.com/news/060316_nasa_moonlander.html.
g Learning - Here’s a neat classroom activity courtesy of NASA: “Interstellar Real Estate.” The lesson examines what makes Earth the perfect home for life as we know it as students explore the orbital characteristics a planetary home needs to support Earth-like life forms. See http://btc.montana.edu/ceres/html/Habitat/habitablezone.htm.
g Imagining - ke stories about alien anthropology and cultures? Then be sure to read James Blish’s classic novel “A Case of Conscience” (1958), in which he explores if original sin exists among the Lithians. See http://members.aol.com/firoane/blish.htm.
g Aftermath - Would should we say to an extraterrestrial? Try the World Wide Web. SETI astronomer Seth Shostak opines at http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=194993&ct=308803.

Massive star’s death cry, water at Mars’ South Pole and how humanity might react when we receive our first interstellar phone call from ET

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 - Several times a week, astronomers detect the violent death cry of a massive star - an extraordinarily energetic release of gamma rays that takes place in just a matter of seconds to minutes, called a gamma-ray burst. The GRB's ejecta, which is thought to be beamed in narrow jets, slams into interstellar gas at near light speed. This violent collision shocks the material and produces a bright afterglow that can radiate brightly at X-ray and other wavelengths for several days, or even a few weeks. But a GRB observed by NASA's Swift satellite on July 29, 2006, generated an X-ray afterglow that remained detectable to the spacecraft's X-ray Telescope for an astonishing 125 days. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/11grbmagnetar/.
g Abodes - New measurements of Mars' south polar region indicate extensive frozen water. The polar region contains enough frozen water to cover the whole planet in a liquid layer approximately 36 feet deep. A joint NASA-Italian Space Agency instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft provided these data. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/15marsice/.
g Life - Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have determined the three-dimensional structure of an RNA enzyme, or "ribozyme," that carries out a fundamental reaction required to make new RNA molecules. Their results provide insight into what may have been the first self-replicating molecule to arise billions of years ago on the evolutionary path toward the emergence of life. See http://www.sciencedaily.com
/releases/2007/03/070315161035.htm.
g Intelligence - A good laugh may not only lift your mood, but can make you more cooperative and altruistic towards strangers, according to a new study. See http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/070316_laugh_altruism.html.
g Message - To contact an alien civilization, humanity might want to consider a Bracewell probe — a hypothetical concept for an autonomous interstellar space probe dispatched for the express purpose of communication with (an) alien civilization(s). It was proposed by Ronald N. Bracewell in a 1960 paper, as an alternative to interstellar radio communication between widely separated civilizations. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracewell_probe.
g Cosmicus - Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., chair of the Senate subcommittee responsible for NASA funding, formally pledged Thursday to again work with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, to increase NASA funding by $1 billion. Mikulski also called for a space summit with the White House to ensure NASA gets the support and funding it needs. See http://space.com/news/060316_nasa_budget.html.
g Learning - Here’s a neat classroom resource courtesy of NASA: “Life on Earth … and Elsewhere?” This booklet contains 5 classroom activities for grades 5-10 spanning topics from "Defining Life," to "Determining the Chances of Extraterrestrial Life." See http://www.erg.pdf/.
g Imagining - Like stories about alien biologies/environments? Be sure to scour your favorite used bookstores for Piers Anthony’s “Omnivore” (1968), which examines fungal life forms.
g Aftermath - How will humanity react when we receive our first interstellar phone call from ET? Though not a new piece, SETI astronomer Seth Shostak offers some intriguing thoughts at http://www.firstscience.com/site/articles/shostak.asp.

Thousand-plus supermassive black holes, the Great Silence and SpaceX launch

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 - By casting a wide net, astronomers have captured an image of more than a thousand supermassive black holes. These results give astronomers a snapshot of a crucial period when these monster black holes are growing, and provide insight into the environments in which they occur. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/12blackholes/.
g Abodes - A menacing lump of rock and dust in space called 1999 RQ36 would barely be noticed except for two crucial facts: it's a treasure trove of organic material and it regularly crosses Earth's orbit, so it might impact us someday. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/16osiris/.
g Life - Giant Australian cuttlefish employ night camouflage to adapt quickly to a variety of microhabitats on temperate rock reefs. New research sheds light on the animal's remarkable visual system and nighttime predator/prey interactions. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070309141100.htm.
g Intelligence - While many scientists have considered masculine tendencies to be barriers to health and recovery, a small study of about 50 men suggests the opposite. The man-of-steel mentality, often associated with military men and those in other high-risk occupations, can boost and speed up a guy’s recovery from a serious and/or traumatic injury possibly. See http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/070316_tough_guys.html.
g Message - During the early 1980s, David Brin offered an explanation for Fermi’s Paradox, which asked why if extraterrestrial life existed it wasn’t on Earth. Brin’s answer: The Zoo Hypothesis. Here’s a copy of that groundbreaking paper, “The 'Great Silence': The Controversy Concerning Extraterrestrial Life “ at http://brin-l.stock-consulting.com/downloads/silence.pdf.
g Cosmicus - The private launch firm Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is reviewing the results of a Thursday rocket engine test in preparations for the second test flight of its Falcon 1 booster. See http://space.com/missionlaunches/070317_spacex_enginetest.html.
g Learning - Here’s a neat Web site for science lovers: “Extremophiles: Can We Live Without Them?” Just 50 years ago tiny microorganisms were found living in environments that would kill all other microorganisms. The site provides an introduction to extremophiles and their unique qualities. See http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0212089/.
g Imagining - Can life ever be noncorporeal, as are Star Trek’s Organians? See http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/P/plasma-based_life.html.

Martian soil sample, species evolution in warm climates and ‘In Cosmic Company’

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 - Whilst science fiction toys effortlessly with anti-matter, in reality it can be very hard to produce, so researchers around the world are celebrating a new break through in this area. For the first time, scientists using the BaBar experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center have observed the transition of one type of particle, the neutral D-meson, into its antimatter particle - a process known as “mixing.” The new observation will be used as a test of the Standard Model, the current theory that best describes the entire universe's luminous matter and its associated forces. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/14antimatter/.
g Abodes - Some bright Martian soil containing lots of sulfur and a trace of water intrigues researchers who are studying information provided by NASA's Spirit rover. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/14spiritsoil/.
g Life - University of British Columbia researchers have discovered that contrary to common belief, species do not evolve faster in warmer climates. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070315161122.htm.
g Intelligence - Female chimps manage how available they are, as a group, for sex. This leads males to fight over them, and when the best males win, the females are more likely to have fit offspring, new research shows. See http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/
070316_chimp_menstruation.html.
g Message - If extraterrestrials are out there, signals that would prove their existence are cascading over your body right now. Needless to say, you don’t notice. The challenge for SETI researchers is to build an instrument that will. Rising to the challenge, the SETI Institute and others are developing new search strategies and telescopes, encouraging some scientists to speculate that a signal detection will occur in the next decade or two. See http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_beingsure_010405.html.
g Cosmicus - Because we are planetary creatures, most people assume the first and most numerous space settlements must be on the Moon or Mars. In fact, we may live in orbit long before settling the Moon or Mars, and there may always be far more space settlers in orbit than on any planet or moon. Orbital settlements are huge spacecraft, big enough for many thousands to live in comfortably, that provide radiation protection, a breathable atmosphere, nearly self-sufficient life support, and that rotate to provide something that feels much like Earth-normal gravity at the rim. See http://space.com/adastra/070316_orbital.html.
g Learning - The space station's connecting module that will serve as the gateway to international science laboratories has been given a name - Harmony - following a nationwide contest for schoolchildren. See http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts120/070315harmony/.
g Imagining - Like first contact stories? Then be sure to read Richard F. Monteleone and David F. Bischoff’s novel, “Day of the Dragonstar,” published in 1983.
g Aftermath - Book alert: In their November 2003 book "In Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe," authors Seth Shostak and Alex Barnett ponder the possibility of alien life and the consequences of receiving a signal from the cosmos. They explain why scientists think sentient life might exist on other worlds, how we could discover it and what it might be like. Entertaining and informative, this hard cover book is lavishly illustrated. See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail//0521822335
/qid=1089658746/sr=81/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103999
37686867868?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 for reviews.

Seas on Titan, don’t see red during tests and sending ET a portrait of humanity

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 - Instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft have found evidence for seas, likely filled with liquid methane or ethane, in the high northern latitudes of Saturn's moon Titan. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload
&name=News&file=article&sid=2271mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Intelligence - Blame those low SAT scores on the person sitting next to you wearing red, because just a glimpse at the color negatively affects test performance, according to a new study. See http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/070305_red_performance.
html.
g Message - A “portrait of humanity” recently was taken by Simon Bell, a photographer from Toronto. It is half of a stereo pair, two images that when properly focused together, reveal the scene’s third dimension. The photograph was envisioned as part of a message for the Cassini mission to Saturn and its moon Titan, launched in late 1997. It would have been an artifact in the tradition of the Voyager Record and the “Visions of Mars” CD ROM. Unlike the Voyager Record it was not intended to leave the solar system to be found by the crew of an advanced starship. Unlike Visions it was not for humans in the next few centuries. Its fate would have been to remain on the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan, waiting for eons of time against the slim chance that life might someday appear on that strange world, or that some other space traveler might visit Titan and find it. The image, inscribed on a diamond wafer about the size of a coin, was intended to show an intelligent alien on Titan viewer a little about our bodies, about our relationships with each other, and about our planet. See article. For related story, see “How the world watched Huygens probe descend” at http://www.spaceflightnow.com/cassini/060729huygens.html.
g Learning - Here’s a great educational tool for teaching astrobiology and various principles of science: COTI. COTI is an educational experiment in creation — students design an integrated world, alien life form and culture, and simulate contact with a future human society. One team constructs a solar system, a world and its ecology, an alien life form and its culture, basing each step on the previous one and utilizing the principles of science as a guide to imagination. The other team designs a future human colony, planetary or spacefaring, "creating and evolving" its culture as an exercise in cultural structure, dynamics and adaptation. Through a structured system of progressive revelation, the teams then simulate — and experience — contact between the two cultures in real time, exploring the problems and possibilities involved in inter-cultural encounters. See http://www.contact-conference.com/archive/educoti.html.
g Imagining - Like first contact stories? Then be sure to read Jayge Carr’s "The Wonderous Works of His Hands," anthologized in “Alien Encounters” (edited by Jan Finder).

Get your SF book manuscript edited

The lives of rocks, whale songs and why many common ideas about SETI just aren’t true

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 - Scientists are refining a technique to pin down the dates of events in the lives of rocks, including the collisions of contents or a rock's journey through the crust of the Earth. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop
=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2270mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Life - Using virtual robots that possess evolvable genomes, researchers have identified key factors that may play important roles in determining how communication arises in the evolution of social organisms. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop
=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2267mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Intelligence - Deep below the ocean's surface, blue whales are singing, and for the first time, scientists think they know why. Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography recorded the sounds and say they offer new insight into the behavior of the passenger jet-sized animals. See http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/070306_whale_whisperers.html.
g Message - Many common ideas about SETI just aren’t true, but that doesn't prevent them from popping up in popular articles, blogs, books, and even movies. Here are three of my favorite fallacies about SETI. See http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_three_myths_060622.html.
g Learning - How are key concepts of astrobiology treated in science fiction? See http://www.ibiblio.org/astrobiology/index.phppage=lesson05. Note: This article is from 2001 and intended to be used as part of a classroom lesson.
g Imagining - Like stories about alien anthropology/cultures? Be sure to scour your favorite used bookstores for C.J. Cherryh’s series “The Foreigner Universe,” which includes “Foreigner” (1994), “Invader” (1995) and “Inheritor” (1996). The series traces our dealings with the proud Atevi from first contact, as the single ambassador they will allow on planet tries to prevent war.

Enceladus’ organic brew, California’s pink slime and why you can’t hear aliens on your car radio

Enceladus’ organic brew, California’s pink slime and why you can’t hear aliens on your car radio
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 - Deep inside Saturn's moon Enceladus may be an organic brew, a heat source, and liquid water - all the key ingredients for life. But where does the heat come from on a small body made of rock and ice? A new model suggests radioactive elements within Enceladus may have jump-started the heating of the moon's interior. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=
modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2269mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Life - Pink slime at the surface of water trickling through an old mine in California is proving to be a treasure for researchers in their quest to learn more about how bacterial communities exist in nature. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=
modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2266mode=thread&order=
0&thold=0.
g Intelligence - Humans caught pubic lice, aka "the crabs," from gorillas roughly three million years ago, scientists now report. See http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/070307_gorilla_lice.html.
g Message - For more than 80 years, we’ve been sending radio (and eventually television) transmissions into space, allowing anyone in space to hear war reports from London, “I Love Lucy” reruns and our latest election results. So wouldn’t hearing aliens be as simple as turning on the radio? Here’s why not: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20041206/alienmessage.html.
g Learning - Here’s a neat classroom activity: “Alien Safari.” New from NASA PlanetQuest, Alien Safari can be used in your classrooms or informal education settings to help kids discover some of the most extreme organisms on our planet, and find out what they are telling astrobiologists about the search for life beyond Earth. See http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/AlienSafari_launch_page.html.
g Imagining - Like first contact stories? Then be sure to read Isaac Asimov’s “The Gods Themselves” (published by Ballentine in 1972).

Asteroid sample probe, ancient ocean creature discovered and ‘Life in the Universe’

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 - In a mission called OSIRIS, NASA plans to take a sample of an asteroid and return it to Earth. "It's a treasure trove of organic material, so it holds clues to how Earth formed and life got started," said Joseph Nuth of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload
&name=News&file=article&sid=2268mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Life - Paleontologists have identified a new species from 11 complete fossils of a slug-like creature covered with prickly armor that likely scooted along the ocean floor with a muscular foot more than 500 million years ago. See http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/070301_hairy_bugs.html.
g Intelligence - Two lovers, a thousand miles apart and yearning to be back in each other’s arms, may find a ray of comfort as they gaze upon the same Moon, knowing that they are bathing together in celestial light from the same source. See http://space.com/searchforlife/seti_moon_070308.html.
g Message - Looking for life elsewhere is a tough task for human or robot. The good news is that the scientific skill and tools to search for, detect and inspect extraterrestrial life are advancing rapidly. See http://www.space.com/searchforlife/lifesigns_spots_020103.html.
g Learning - Here’s a neat astrobiology lesson plan for teachers about “Life in the Universe,” courtesy the United Kingdom: www.nssc.co.uk/education/supportmaterials/PreVisitDocs/KS4
and5/Life%20in%20Universe.doc. It includes activities.
g Imagining - In Ridley Scott's 1979 slimy monster masterpiece "Alien," the extraterrestrial life form discovered by Sigourney Weaver and crew goes through two startlingly different phases after it hatches. Is such a change during the life of an animal mere sci fi license? Not really. In fact, many earthlings go through similar drastic changes in form. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload
&name=News&file=article&sid=101. Note: This article is from March 2001.

Massive star’s explosive death, robot helps explain evolution, and plausibility of interstellar communication

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 - The explosive death of a massive star has broken the record for longest-lived light show. Observations from NASA’s Swift satellite have revealed a so-called gamma-ray burst for which the afterglow remained visible for more than 125 days. See http://space.com/scienceastronomy/070308_swift_gammas.html.
g Life - A robot that slinks along the ground and winds through water like a salamander is helping scientists understand how animals walked from aquatic environments onto land millions of years ago. See http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/070308_sala
mander_robot.html.
g Intelligence - Genetics could explain why some women are more ill tempered than others. See article.
g Learning - Here’s a neat set of lessons, designed for at-risk students: “The Plausibility of Interstellar Communication and Related Phenomena Depicted in Science Fiction Literature and the Movies.” The curriculum has four major objectives: first, to educate students to develop concepts about the proximity of our solar system in relation to other probable solar systems in the Milky Way Galaxy; second, to give students the opportunity to use these concepts to evaluate the plausibility of interstellar communication depicted in science fiction literature and movies; third, to create an opportunity for students not only to look out on the universe but to turn it inward to look at the world, their own society, and themselves as individuals; and fourth, an objective that will be integrated with all of the others is to give students to opportunity to learn and/or sharpen skills in: using the scientific method, research, reading, writing, collaboration, discussion and in critical thinking. See article.
g Imagining - Like first contact stories? Then be sure to read Carol Car and Karen Haber’s short story "First Contact, Sort of" appearing in the anthology “The Ultimate Alien” (edited by Keith R. A. DeCandido, John Betancourt and Byron Preiss; published by Dell in 1995).

Earth's magnetic field, what If everybody is listening and nobody is transmitting and

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 - Two professors have established that quantum information cannot be “hidden” in conventional ways. This result gives a surprising new twist to one of the great mysteries about black holes. See article.
g Abodes - Research recently conducted at Delft University of Technology marks an important step forward in understanding the origins of the Earth's magnetic field. The research findings are published this week in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070309103129.htm.
g Life - A secret long held by plants has been revealed by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers. The new discovery, which builds on more than a decade of painstaking surveillance of cellular communication between different types of plant tissues, shows clearly for the first time how plants "decide" to grow. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070307152948.htm.
g Intelligence - Rats appear capable of reflecting on what they know and don't know, a complex form of thinking previously found only in humans and other primates. See http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/070309_rat_thinkers.html.
g Message - Whenever the director of SETI research presents a public lecture, she can almost guarantee that “What If everybody is listening and nobody is transmitting?” will be one of the questions the audience asks. See http://space.com/searchforlife/seti_tarter_transmit_050421.html.
g Cosmicus - The urge to hug a departed loved one again or prevent atrocities are among the compelling reasons that keep the notion of time travel alive in the minds of many. While the idea makes for great fiction, some scientists now say traveling to the past is impossible. See http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffiction/070307_time_travel.html.
g Learning - Here’s a neat lesson plan, “E.T. Can’t Phone Home,” that teaches some basic principles of astronomy: http://www.scpub.org/filelibrary/pdf/etact.pdf.
g Imagining - Like stories about alien biologies/environments? Be sure to scour your favorite used bookstores for Harlan Ellison’s (ed.) “Medea: Harlan's World” (1985), a symposium on alien creation.

Sun’s affect of asteroid rotation, looking rather than listening for ET and microgravity science laboratory

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 - For the first time, astronomers have witnessed how the Sun can affect the rotation of asteroids. Heating from the Sun, and the subsequent energy release from asteroids, can ultimately change their orbits and affect their potential for crossing the orbit of Earth. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop
=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2265mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Abodes - Scientists using NASA satellites have discovered an extensive network of waterways beneath a fast-moving Antarctic ice stream that provide clues as to how "leaks" in the system impact sea level and the world's largest ice sheet. Antarctica holds about 90 percent of the world's ice and 70 percent of the world's reservoir of fresh water. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0702/24antarctica/.
g Life - Smithsonian scientists have discovered a biodiversity bounty in the Eastern Pacific ­­— approximately 50 percent of the organisms found in some groups are new to science. The research team spent 11 days in the Eastern Pacific, a unique, understudied region off the coast of Panama. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070308121755.htm.
g Intelligence - Today’s time switch could shake up your biological clock, rattle your mood and give your bones and teeth an extra dose of vitamin D. See http://www.livescience.com/environment/070307
_daylight_savings.html.
g Message - Should we be looking for extraterrestrial civilizations, rather than just listening for them, as we do in the SETI project? That is the suggestion of a French astronomer, Luc Arnold, in his paper “Transit Lightcurve Signatures of Artificial Objects.” He believes that the transit of large artificial objects in front of a sun could be a used for the emission of attention-getting signals. See http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/technovel_
ringworld_050415.html.
g Cosmicus - Over 60 scientists and technicians have taken up temporary residence in ESA's brand new microgravity science laboratory, where, for the coming days, they will rehearse procedures to prepare experiments for the Foton M3 mission later this year. See http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/05foton/.
g Learning - What textbooks are college students reading in “Astrobiology 101” courses around the nation? See http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/college_courses/resources.cfm.

Universe's "pre-teen" years, search for extraterrestrial probes and lunar base

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 - A massive project to generate an all-color map of the galaxies in a small area of sky, utilizing four satellite telescopes and four ground-based telescopes, is yielding new information about the universe's "pre-teen" years and the early evolution of galaxies and galaxy clusters. See article.
g Message - Interstellar spacecraft are superior to electromagnetic wave propagation for extrasolar exploration and communication. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence should include a search for extraterrestrial probes. See http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/TheCaseForInterstellarProbes1983.htm. Note: This article is from 1983.
g Cosmicus - The SMART-1 spacecraft has investigated an area of the Moon that could be a good location to conduct future lunar science studies and to prepare humans for missions to Mars. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop
=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2264mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Learning - Here’s a good introduction to learning about the characteristics of living things is to get the kids brainstorming as to what makes a living thing living: “Glue Critters.” See http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/168.html.