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 - Techniques used to scope out caves on Earth have been used to identify potential entrances to caves on Mars. If caves do exist on Mars, they might serve as a habitat for life by helping to protect organisms from harsh surface radiation and other factors. See http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.phpop=modload
&name=News&file=article&sid=2290mode=thread&order
=0&thold=0.
g Life - Biologists at New York University have identified how different species use common genes to control their early development and alter how these genes are used to accommodate their own features. The findings offer new insight into the workings of developmental pathways across species. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070330185043.htm.
g Message - On an episode of “The Space Show” in 2005, Scot Stride, a senior engineer at NASA JPL in Pasadena, Calif., was the guest for this Space Show program. Stride discussed SETI programs with us and highlighted his discussion with the SETI alternatives, SETV (Search for ET Visitation) and S3ETI (Solar System SETI). Stride provided listeners with a superb background and history on SETI, how it started and how it became what it is today. He also discussed the Allen Telescope Array and what it will mean for future SETI efforts. To hear a copy of the show, see http://thespaceshow.com/detail.asp?q=359.
g Learning - Here’s a neat Web site that links to sites offering K-12 instructional materials on space exploration astrobiology: http://www.k12imc.org/classroom/integrated/astronomy/space.php.
g Imagining - Could the legendary dragons of Pern from Anne McCaffrey’s famous science fiction novels actually exist? Welcome to the theoretical science of dracogenetics. See http://www.geocities.com/jenaith/DNA1.html.
g Aftermath - Could a signal from the stars broadcast by an alien intelligence also carry harmful information, in the spirit of a computer virus? Could star folk launch a "disinformation" campaign — one that covers up aspects of their culture? Perhaps they might even mask the "real" intent of dispatching a message to other civilizations scattered throughout the cosmos. See http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/space_hackers_031111.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.