SETI Search Reveals No Alien Signals from Exoplanets Intelligent alien life is likely relatively rare throughout our Milky Way galaxy, with fewer than one in a million solar systems harboring civilizations advanced enough to send out radio signals, a new study reports. A research team that includes famed alien hunter Jill Tarter — the model for astronomer Ellie Arroway in Carl Sagan's famous book "Contact" — surveyed dozens of planet-hosting stars for radio signals from alien civilizations. They turned up nothing. "No signals of extraterrestrial origin were found," the researchers conclude in the study, which has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Searching for signs of intelligent life The team selected 86 stars using data from NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, and also observed 19 stars that serendipitously fell within range as they searched the primary targets. The researchers were working with the catalog of Kepler planetary candidates, which at the time included 1,235 possible exoplanets.
Purple bacteria on Earth could survive alien light Public release date: 23-Jul-2013 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Annette Gallaghera.gallagher1@umiami.edu 305-284-1121University of Miami CORAL GABLES, FL (JULY 23, 2013) — Purple bacteria contain pigments that allow them to use sunlight as their source of energy, hence their color. Small as they are, these microbes can teach us a lot about life on Earth, because they have been around longer than most other organisms on the planet. Johnson, head of the inter-disciplinary research group in complexity in the College of Arts and Sciences at UM and his collaborators share their findings in a paper titled "Extreme alien light allows survival of terrestrial bacteria" published online in Nature's Scientific Reports. The results are also applicable in the scenario of our own sun developing extreme fluctuations and in a situation in which bacteria are subject to extreme artificial light sources in the laboratory. Light comes in packets of photons. [ Print | E-mail
Hunt for alien spacecraft begins, as planet-spotting scientist Geoff Marcy gets funding Artist rendering of alien spaceship Photo: Ray Edgar In the field of planet hunting, Geoff Marcy is a star. After all, the astronomer at the University of California at Berkeley found nearly three-quarters of the first 100 planets discovered outside our solar system. He's not kidding - and now he has the funding to do it. If intelligent life is common in the galaxy, "where is everybody?" Last fall, the Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic organisation dedicated to investigating what it calls the "big questions" - which, unsurprisingly, include "Are we alone?" What astronomer Geoff Marcy doesn't hope to find: A Death Star Photo: Wookieepedia As far as Marcy, an official NASA researcher for the Kepler mission, is concerned, that question has a clear answer: "The universe is simply too large for there not to be another intelligent civilisation out there. Advertisement "It's a heartbreaker," he says. Successful so far Kepler has been wildly successful in its four years. The concept is simple.
Future evidence for extraterrestrial life might come from dying stars (Phys.org)—Even dying stars could host planets with life—and if such life exists, we might be able to detect it within the next decade. This encouraging result comes from a new theoretical study of Earth-like planets orbiting white dwarf stars. Researchers found that we could detect oxygen in the atmosphere of a white dwarf's planet much more easily than for an Earth-like planet orbiting a Sun-like star. "In the quest for extraterrestrial biological signatures, the first stars we study should be white dwarfs," said Avi Loeb, theorist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation. When a star like the Sun dies, it puffs off its outer layers, leaving behind a hot core called a white dwarf. Since a white dwarf is much smaller and fainter than the Sun, a planet would have to be much closer in to be habitable with liquid water on its surface. More importantly, we can only study the atmospheres of transiting planets.
Charles Darwin Silence in the sky—but why? (Phys.org) —Scientists as eminent as Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan have long believed that humans will one day colonise the universe. But how easy would it be, why would we want to, and why haven't we seen any evidence of other life forms making their own bids for universal domination? A new paper by Dr Stuart Armstrong and Dr Anders Sandberg from Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) attempts to answer these questions. To be published in the August/September edition of the journal Acta Astronautica, the paper takes as its starting point the Fermi paradox – the discrepancy between the likelihood of intelligent alien life existing and the absence of observational evidence for such an existence. Dr Armstrong says: 'There are two ways of looking at our paper. The first is as a study of our future – humanity could at some point colonise the universe. Dr Sandberg explains: 'Why would the FHI care about the Fermi paradox?
Charles Darwin | Allt om Historia Under en världsomsegling insåg Charles Darwin hur livet på jorden hade utvecklats. Hans teori om evolutionen var lika enkel som genial, men kastade samtidigt Bibelns skapelseberättelse över ända och mötte hårt motstånd. Text: Anna Larsdotter I augusti 1831 fick Charles Darwin ett brev som skulle förändra hans liv. Avsändare var hans vän John Stevens Henslow, professor i botanik i Cambridge. Av Henslow hade Darwin lärt sig massor om sitt stora intresse: djur och växter. I brevet frågade Henslow om Darwin ville följa med på en forskningsseglats runt jorden. Så gav sig Charles Robert Darwin den 27 december 1831 av på sitt livs resa. Darwin växte upp med en äldre bror och fyra systrar. Charles Darwin var inte av riktigt samma skrot och korn som sin far och farfar. Han hade lärt sig att stoppa upp djur och byggt upp en imponerande samling skalbaggar. Darwin fascinerades av de arter han hittade på ögruppen. Darwins anteckningar från resan med Beagle var fyllda av entusiastiska utrop.
Amino Acids and DNA Ingredients found in Space February 28, 2013 Contact: Dave Finley, Public Information Officer Socorro, NM (575) 835-7302 dfinley@nrao.edu Using new technology at the telescope and in laboratories, researchers have discovered an important pair of prebiotic molecules in interstellar space. The discoveries indicate that some basic chemicals that are key steps on the way to life may have formed on dusty ice grains floating between the stars. The scientists used the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia to study a giant cloud of gas some 25,000 light-years from Earth, near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. One of the newly-discovered molecules, called cyanomethanimine, is one step in the process that chemists believe produces adenine, one of the four nucleobases that form the "rungs" in the ladder-like structure of DNA. In each case, the newly-discovered interstellar molecules are intermediate stages in multi-step chemical processes leading to the final biological molecule.
Cell Models For life all cells have basic needs. Cells have diverged in their structure and function to accommodate these survival requirements. Here are some KEY TERMS to help you think, explore and search for similarities and significant differences that have become the characteristics of eukaryote (animal, plant) and prokaryotic (bacteria) cells. Examples might be searching: eukaryote prokaryote reproduction or animal plant cell energy. Reproduction / cell division Energy trapping, storage and consumption Form / shape / structure Cell specialization Compartmentalization of cell functions Communication within and beyond the cell Cell / organism survival Search for life suggests solar systems more habitable than ours Public release date: 3-Dec-2012 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Pam Frost GorderGorder.1@osu.edu 614-292-9475Ohio State University SAN FRANCISCO—Scattered around the Milky Way are stars that resemble our own sun—but a new study is finding that any planets orbiting those stars may very well be hotter and more dynamic than Earth. That's because the interiors of any terrestrial planets in these systems are likely warmer than Earth—up to 25 percent warmer, which would make them more geologically active and more likely to retain enough liquid water to support life, at least in its microbial form. The preliminary finding comes from geologists and astronomers at Ohio State University who have teamed up to search for alien life in a new way. They studied eight "solar twins" of our sun—stars that very closely match the sun in size, age, and overall composition—in order to measure the amounts of radioactive elements they contain. "It all starts with supernovae. [ Print | E-mail
DNA from the Beginning - An animated primer of 75 experiments that made modern genetics. evolution