Planet discovered around red giant and lost toolbag

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 - A team of astronomers from Penn State and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland has discovered a new planet that is closely orbiting a red-giant star, HD 102272, which is much older than our own Sun. The planet has a mass that is nearly six times that of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. See article.
g Life - Scientists have found unique microbes living in environments where life was not known before. Both communities - beneath the Antarctic ice sheet and at the floor of the Mediterranean - could have an effect on the global carbon cycle. See article.
g Message -Britain’s Astronomer Royal says we’ll likely know if intelligent aliens exist by the end of this century. See article.
g Cosmicus -A NASA astronaut accidentally lost her toolbag while conducting a spacewalk. See article.
g Learning - Here’s a neat Web site that explains the history of the universe to kids. They can click onto a piece of a puzzle that visually shows the major steps from the Big Bang to people.