Liquid water’s key role in life and looking for alien's giant structures

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 - Since the same laws of physics, chemical thermodynamics and carbon chemistry apply everywhere, there should be a high probability that other stars and satellites may harbor life, provided liquid water is available. See article.
g Message - The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) could be taking the wrong approach. Instead of listening for alien radio broadcasts, a better strategy may be to look for giant structures placed in orbit around nearby stars by alien civilizations. See article. Note: This article is from 2005.
g Aftermath - Bridging between the disciplines, from the physical sciences to the life sciences, is the task accepted by astrobiology. The confluence of studying a meteorite from Mars, discovery of extrasolar planets and development of a concept to seek Earths around other stars led NASA to put together its astrobiology program. The three events came from different groups substantially out of contact with one another, but connected by three giant goals, to question how we came about, interested in finding whether life existed elsewhere, and like all of us, concerned about the future for humanity. See article.