Life blown in from Venus and human exploration of the Moon

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 EI Cancri AB?
g Abodes -For the first time, scientists have mapped an elaborate maze of magma chambers beneath the volcanoes of Iceland. The unique view into a complex subterranean world could provide important information about earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. See article.
g Life - Life on Venus could be blown to Earth by powerful winds, scientists claim. See article.
g Message -The Fermi paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations. See article.
g Cosmicus -Technology being used to help rovers navigate on Mars is now being adapted to aid in human exploration of the moon. The new system will help human explorers explore the lunar surface to collect samples and perform experiments. See article.
g Learning -Three years after the president of Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, got into trouble for questioning women’s “intrinsic aptitude” for science and engineering — and 16 years after the talking Barbie doll proclaimed that “math class is tough” — a study paid for by the National Science Foundation has found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests. See article.
g Aftermath - What if we did contact another intelligent life form in the universe? Should we respond? What should we say? What traits best represent our humanity? Douglas Vakoch, the SETI Institute’s director of Interstellar Message Composition, is working with scientists, artists, linguists, composers, and others to imagine how to speak for our planet. Here’s a Webcast in which Vakoch describes his work; scroll to “Talking with ET.”