Elements that might enable life on another world and analyze a signal from space just like a SETI astronomer

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Abodes - Angelle Tanner, a post-doctoral scholar at JPL and Caltech, studies planets in distant solar systems, called extrasolar planets. The golden prize in this field is to find a planet similar to Earth - the only planet we know that harbors life. While more than 350 extrasolar planets have been detected, most are gas planets, with no solid surface. Many are located in orbits closer to their parent star than Mercury is to the sun. In other words, not very similar to Earth. Here's Tanner's short list of what she and her colleagues would love to find in another planet - the elements that might enable life on another world. See article.
g Cosmicus - There are many practical benefits to space exploration. Advances in space technology have a dramatic effect on Earth technology. Benefits range from new ergonomic solutions for people who do repetitive work to industrial medical X-ray machines. Listed below are several of these benefits. See article. Note: This article is from 2002.
g Learning - Here’s a neat interactive Web game where you analyze a signal from space, just as would a SETI astronomer.

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