Looking for habitable worlds around white dwarfs and scientifically accurate made-up 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 Stars - Planet hunters have found hundreds of planets outside the solar system in the last decade, though it is unclear whether even one might be habitable. But it could be that the best place to look for planets that can support life is around dim, dying stars called white dwarfs. See article.
g Abodes - Between 75 and 80 percent of all volcanic activity on Earth takes place at deep-sea, mid-ocean ridges. Most of these volcanoes produce effusive lava flows rather than explosive eruptions, both because the levels of magmatic gas (which fuel the explosions and are made up of a variety of components, including, most importantly CO2) tend to be low, and because the volcanoes are under a lot of pressure from the surrounding water. See article.
g Life - Insects using vibration to attract a mate are at risk of being eaten alive by killer spiders, new research shows. See article.
g Cosmicus - Every day, about 100 tons of meteoroids bombard the Earth's atmosphere. These tiny particles can cause serious damage to spacecraft and astronauts alike. So how do we ensure the safety of space explorers and the important scientific experiments in orbit around our planet? See article.
g Imagining - Many science fiction story lines involve alien life forms. From a literary prospective, aliens often serve as metaphors for something more familiar. From a practical prospective, they make stories more interesting and TV more eye-catching. But what of scientific accuracy? A professor offers his advice about "How to Build an Alien".

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