Bacterial microfossils in meteorites and communicating with aliens

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 - By studying meteorites, scientists have discovered new information about how the Earth formed. Studying the early stages of planet formation can help astrobiologists determine how and where to search for habitable planets in the universe. See article.
g Life - NASA scientist Richard B. Hoover has sparked controversy with claims that he has identified bacterial microfossils in several meteorites. If proved correct, the implications are that life is common throughout the universe, and that life on Earth may have come from other planets. See article.
g Intelligence - Anyone considering an expensive purchase might do well to drink a bottle of water first, scientists concluded after finding that people with full bladders make wiser decisions. See article.
g Message - Communicating with Aliens, Part I: The SETI debates have included cautionary arguments about the possibility that aliens might be hostile. But this perspective, most easily dealt with by military attitudes, tends to be set aside in favor of an assumption that aliens would necessarily be intelligent and motivated to communicate in a way that fits comfortably into Western assumptions — to the point of commercializing the dispatch of personal messages into deep space at a charge of $14.95 each. Unfortunately the assumptions associated with this process do not seem to have been explored. Reliance on number theory as a basis for developing communication could easily be interpreted as a convenient projection by a psycho-socially unchallenged scientific milieu — which has its own internal communication problems between disciplines for which no common language has yet been developed. The nature of the challenge can perhaps best be scoped out by exploring the difficulties of communicating with the "aliens" that are frequently encountered in the daily life of a global society. See article.
g Cosmicus - A team of scientists has developed the very first optical fiber made with a core of zinc selenide - a light-yellow compound that can be used as a semiconductor. The new class of optical fiber, which allows for a more effective and liberal manipulation of light, promises to open the door to more versatile laser-radar technology. Such technology could be applied to the development of improved surgical and medical lasers, better countermeasure lasers used by the military, and superior environment-sensing lasers such as those used to measure pollutants and to detect the dissemination of bioterrorist chemical agents. See article.

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