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 Peter Ward’s newest book, “Under a Green Sky,” he explains how global warming has led to the loss of life throughout Earth’s history. In this interview, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson talks with Ward about the many ways the Earth tries to kill us.
g Life - New research shows that it took at least 30 million years for ecological systems on Earth to fully recover after the most devastating extinction event in the planet's history.
g Intelligence - Coffee is an effective countermeasure to sleepiness for those young and middle-aged, but napping is more efficient in the young, a French study found.
g Message - Interpreting any alien message likely will involve anticryptography. See article.
g Aftermath - What are the psycho-social issues of communicating with extraterrestrials intelligently? See article.
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.