Links between meteorites and astrobiology and should the government be trusted to handle first 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 Abodes -In this podcast, Beda Hofmann explores the links between meteorites and astrobiology, and discusses Europe's proposed Marco Polo Mission to an asteroid.
g Learning -As the bankruptcy of creation "science" becomes increasingly recognized, a new catch phrase, intelligent design, has been adopted by those who persist in their attempts to inject creationism into the science curriculum. See article.
g Imagining - Some science fiction tales show aliens (and often humans) “de-evolving,” or undergoing some mutation that makes the lifeform the creature its species evolved from. This occurred in a “Star Trek: The next Generation” episode and a Theodore Sturgeon novella. By tracing the 30-million year history of variation in a gene found in plants such as tomatoes and tobacco, biologists at the University of California, San Diego have found new evidence to support an old idea - that some evolutionary changes are irreversible. Their study, published in an early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers new support for the idea that the loss of complex traits, like eyes, wings or in this case a reproductive mechanism, is often irreversible. See article. Note: This article is from 2006.
g Aftermath - Would dutiful American citizens trust the government to handle first contact with extraterrestrials and rush to get information to the public? See article. Note: This article is from 1999.

Get your SF manuscript edited