Comet or asteroid exploded over Canada 12,900 years ago and ‘After 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 Stars - What is the habitable zone for the nearby star GJ 388?
g Abodes -New evidence indicates that a comet or asteroid exploded over Canada 12,900 years ago. The event occurred at the end of the last Ice Age and coincides with an age of extinction. See article.
g Message - The story goes like this: Sometime in the 1940s, Enrico Fermi was talking about the possibility of extra-terrestrial intelligence with some other physicists. They were impressed that life had evolved quickly and progressively on Earth. They figured our galaxy holds about 100 billion stars, and that an intelligent, exponentially reproducing species could colonize the galaxy in just a few million years. They reasoned that extraterrestrial intelligence should be common by now. Fermi listened patiently, then asked, simply, "So, where is everybody?" That is, if extra-terrestrial intelligence is common, why haven't we met any bright aliens yet? This conundrum became known as Fermi's Paradox. See article.
g Cosmicus -Reno astronomer Dan Ruby is one of a 10-member team that will spend a month in Chile's Atacama desert region, developing techniques for discovering and studying caves on Mars. The expedition might give NASA scientists the information they need to one day survive on Mars. See article.
g Learning -She may be only 11 years old, but Paris Anderson is off to college. The preteen, who is a member of the National Society for the Gifted and Talented, begins a three-week residential program Sunday at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Among the courses she will be studying are creative writing, zoology and astrobiology. See article.
g Aftermath - Here’s an interesting book for some astrobiological reading: “After Contact: The Human Response to Extraterrestrial Life” by Albert A. Harrison. Click here for reviews.