Sunday, October 03, 2010

At least 200 technological civilizations in galaxy and whiffs of oxygen on early Earth

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 - Whiffs of oxygen may have been present on Earth before the Great Oxidation Event. This may have allowed for niche environments for oxygen-dependent organisms before the global atmosphere became oxygen rich. This isn't the only example of how climate change can first occur regionally rather than globally. See article.
g Life - Computational biologists at the University of Pennsylvania say that species are still accumulating on Earth but at a slower rate than in the past. See article.
g Intelligence - When it comes to intelligence, the whole can indeed be greater than the sum of its parts. A new study co-authored by MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and Union College researchers documents the existence of collective intelligence among groups of people who cooperate well, showing that such intelligence extends beyond the cognitive abilities of the groups' individual members, and that the tendency to cooperate effectively is linked to the number of women in a group. See article.
g Message - The founder of the scientific search for extraterrestrial civilizations Frank Drake believed that a minimum of 200 highly developed civilizations were hiding somewhere in our galaxy. See article. This article is from 2006.
g Cosmicus - The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has taken some big steps to help push commercial spaceflight forward with two new programs to study and streamline the emerging industry. See article.

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