Number of stars in Milky Way and analogy for understanding Martian volcanoes

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 - We’ve often speculated here about how many stars exist in the Milky Way. Earlier estimates have ranged from one hundred billion up to four hundred billion, with a few wildcard guesses in the range of one trillion. The number is still, of course, inexact, but recent work has led to a serious misunderstanding of the subject. See article.
g Abodes - California’s famous Amboy Crater may be a good analogy for understanding Martian volcanoes. See article.
g Cosmicus - So a few weeks ago, a team at Johnson Space Center made a video report on what are some of the barriers to innovation at NASA. See article.

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