How planetary scientists do their job and archaeologists’ and anthropologists’ lessons for SETI

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 Message -Fermi’s Paradox, Part III: We seem to have the Galaxy to ourselves. At least, that’s the obvious conclusion from the apparent lack of aliens in the neighborhood. But this conclusion might be a bit too obvious, and possibly wrong. In previous articles, we’ve considered why extraterrestrial intelligence – even if common – would have restrained itself from spreading to every half-decent star system in the galaxy. It’s possible that the aliens have done cost-benefit analyses that show interstellar travel to be too costly or too dangerous to warrant ambitious colonization efforts. An alternative suggestion that would explain our apparent solitude is that the galaxy is urbanized, and we’re in a dullsville suburb. See article. Note: This article is from 2001.
g Learning -Here’s a neat set of classroom activities that show how planetary scientists do their job. See article.
g Aftermath - Do archaeologists and anthropologists have anything to teach the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, where encounters are at the distance of light-years, and a round-trip exchange could take millennia? See article.