Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Stony meteorites and scientific plausibility of Star Trek's alien creatures

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 September of last year, an object came crashing down in the Peruvian countryside and captured headlines around the world. Now the object has been identified and is changing our knowledge of stony meteorites. See article.
g Life - A geologic mapping project led to the finding of a 10 million-year-old fossil that's now being studied at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. See article.
g Cosmicus - Vietnam is preparing to launch its first satellite, hoping to improve the country's telecommunications to keep pace with its rapid economic development, officials said. See article.
g Imagining - Browse the local used bookstores for this volume, which examined the scientific plausibility of many alien creatures in "Star Trek": "To Seek Out New Life: The Biology of Star Trek". Published about four years ago, Athena Andreadis' book makes a good read, boosted by her background as a molecular biologist and neurosurgeon.
g Aftermath - It is sometimes said that the best form of advertising is education. But what products would our global marketplace tolerate at the borders of an encounter with another, perhaps far different civilization? To get some perspective, an expert entertains the question of how to advertise our presence to a more universal demographic. Note: This article came out in November 2004. See article.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the mention, Rob! If you want to see recent activity, here is my latest web site, with a blog that discusses astrobiology (and other issues): Starship Reckless

Rob Bignell said...

More than two years after this post, Starship Reckless is still going strong. There's some neat stuff at the site - be sure to check it out, especially if you're a science fiction fan!