Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Ancient climate change on Mars and why we don’t hear aliens on the radio

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 -New research shows evidence of ancient climate change on Mars caused by variations in the planet's tilt relative to the sun. The findings may help scientists understand if Mars was habitable for life at some point in the planet's past. See article.
g Life - Is there life in the universe beyond our planet Earth? This is a question that has been pondered for literally thousand of years. Though scientists have yet to find proof of extraterrestrial life, they have discovered enough about biology and chemistry, along with the makeup of stars and other worlds, to formulate some comprehensive ideas about what kind of life and where such organisms might exist elsewhere in the cosmos. See article. Note: This article is from 2007.
g Message -For more than 80 years, we’ve been sending radio (and eventually television) transmissions into space, allowing anyone in space to hear war reports from London, “I Love Lucy” reruns and our latest election results. So wouldn’t hearing aliens be as simple as turning on the radio? Here’s why not.
g Learning -Although exobiology is of widespread interest to high school science students, it is not generally dealt with comprehensively in most textbooks. In addition, teachers often have inadequate resources available to prepare classroom presentations on how life may have begun on Earth and whether these processes might take place elsewhere in the solar system and the universe. Here’s a classroom teaching module suitable for use in both general and advanced high school biology courses.

Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future


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