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When you consider the utter vastness of space, it isn't hard to accept that, somewhere out there, extraterrestrial life probably exists. That being said, one can just as soon reason that the Universe is so immense, the odds of us actually finding evidence for the existence of alien organisms are probably pretty slim. Given the mind-boggling hugeness of the cosmos, where would we even begin looking for signs of life? More »
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Back in August, we told you about a free course on artificial intelligence being offered by Stanford University, and co-taught by two world-renowned AI experts. The class officially started today, so if you managed to register for it on time, then good on you. More »
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Let the search for extraterrestrial life resume! More »
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Astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson was on Bill Maher last Friday, and he said everything that needs to be said about plans to slash NASA's budget, including doing away with the James Webb Space Telescope. His phenomenal, astounding rant is one of the greatest pieces of truth-telling you'll hear today: More »
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In April, we were saddened to find out that SETI's Allen Telescope Array (ATA) had lost its funding and would have to shut down the world's biggest, longest-running experiment in searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. More »
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Due to funding cuts, SETI's Allen Radio Telescope Array will no longer be scanning the skies for signs of intelligent life. All the group needs is $5 million to keep working. Sound like a lot? Not really - let this chart put it all into perspective for you. More »
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This week, the SETI Institute announced that it would have to shut down its large radio telescope facility, called the Allen Telescope Array, near the California mountain town Hat Creek. For over a decade, SETI has used the 42 radio dishes in its array to scan the skies for possible communications from extraterrestrial intelligence. More »
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The search for alien intelligence has mostly centered on waiting to hear any interstellar radio signals, but we might now have a way to see aliens as well. We just need to look for mega-engineering projects on alien asteroid belts. More »
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The Effect of Exoplanet Mining on Debris Distribution in Asteroid BeltsForgan and Elvis via arXiv More »
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The SETI Institute is dedicated to finding extraterrestrial life, so it's perhaps fitting that SETI's first Artist In Residence creates art that looks utterly alien. Charles Lindsay, a former photojournalist, has developed a new form of art called CARBON. More »
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As a fan of I Love Lucy since childhood, I've always been pleased that this show - and not, say, Milton Berle or Sid Caesar - is the one always referred to when talking about Earth being detected by other civilizations. And when I first thought about it, the idea that there was a detectable bubble of TV transmission forging out into the galaxy since Lucy's first show in 1951 seemed completely wondrous. I Love Lucy is 60 light years from us now, or will be with this October's anniversary of that first show. I've always wondered what extraterrestrials would make of Fred Mertz. More »
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Some astronomers think detecting an extraterrestrial radio signal is a matter of when, not if. What goes on in the immediate aftermath of such a discovery? Here's what happened the last few times we thought we'd heard from E.T. More »
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When SETI trains their radio telescopes on the sky, it's a way of seeking out strange new life. It's also kind of hot. That's why Babeland has created this special "SETI blue" vibrator that looks like a mini radio telescope. More »
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That's what one scientist is claiming, saying he detected a suspicious light pulse in the vicinity of Gliese 581g two years ago. But the rest of the astronomy community is blasting his claims, accusing him of making a mistake...or worse. More »
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Science fiction author Gregory Benford and his twin brother, the physicist James Benford, say that scientists are tackling the search for intelligent life as if aliens had 1960s-era technology. Here are their suggestions for updating the search for ET. More »
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Our probes and landers still look for life "as we know it." But we're already aware that even terrestrial life goes beyond what we once considered possible. We should use that experience, or we may literally step on alien life. More »
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The old approach to finding alien life, looking for radio signals, may be played out. New approaches are getting a lot more public attention, judging from a new Economist article and Paul Davies' new book, The Eerie Silence. More »
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Are intergalactic lolcats in our future? SETI Founder Frank Drake thinks it's possible. Recently Drake said that alien civilizations may have created an intergalactic internet using an aspect of general relativity called gravitational lensing. How would that work? More »
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The Arecibo Message isn't some new Spanish sportswear label - it's the binary message that SETI researchers transmitted into space in 1974 to converse with extraterrestrials. Nonetheless, you can rock the Arecibo Message sartorially, with this retro-chic SETI scarf. More »
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Advanced alien civilizations could be out there, but currently we are searching for the wrong signs of life. Richard Carrigan of Fermilab contends that we should try looking for the telltale signs of massive star engines. More »
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You may have spent years with your own lo-fi search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, but SETI is inviting you to join the big leagues by opening up their own data for the world to improve. More »
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This week, the Royal Society held a two-day seminar to discuss topics of extraterrestrial import. How might aliens behave? Is digital cable screwing up our chances of contacting another world? Our finest minds tackled these and other issues. More »
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An economics graduate student in the UK has used the well-known Drake Equation - used to figure out how many advanced civilizations might reside in our galaxy - to determine why he hasn't had a girlfriend in three years. More »
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What better way to conclude Turkey Day 2009 than with a forty-year-old fake trailer about a killer 300-foot turkey, shot by a bunch of Caltech astronomers in the style of fifties monster movies? Warning: some truly fowl puns lay ahead! More »
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Astrophysicist Ragbir Bhathal works with SETI to scan the skies for possible communications from extraterrestrial intelligences. Unlike most SETI facilities, which look for radio signals, Bhathal's looks for laser pulses. And now he's found one. More »
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Science fiction often gets basic science wrong, but it still has a lot to teach scientists about the implications of their work, says science educator and SF author Mike Brotherton. More »
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There are probably billions of Earthlike planets in our galaxy alone, predicts scientist Alan Boss. With NASA launching the Kepler satellite, seeking other Earths, you can expect the first discoveries in a few years. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5161670&view=rss&microfeed=true SETI Senior Astronomer Seth Shostack was a science advisor to The Day the Earth Stood Still, and spills his guts about the experience today in an article for Space.com. Apparently he tried (sometimes vainly) to correct a lot of astronomy-related inaccuracies in the movie, and also told John Cleese the meaning of life while working on set. Apparently Cleese wasn't thrilled with his answer. It's a great article - definitely check it out. [via Space.com] More »
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Click to viewIf we received a message from an extraterrestrial civilization, would we necessarily realize it? SETI has long scanned the skies for evidence of alien transmissions, while others have proposed a hunt for physical artifacts sent by our distant neighbors. But neutrino physicists at the University of Hawaii have proposed yet another possibility: that humans have already received an extraterrestrial communication, and that we might find the message in our existing observations of the stars. More »
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The 27 massive antenna dishes that make up the Very Large Array radio telescope have given us some astonishing glimpses into the cosmos (and have repeatedly detected signals sent by intelligent aliens in some of our favorite scifi films). As impressive as it is, the VLA is about to get a major upgrade. Astronomers are going to be able to do some amazing things with VLA 2.0. More »
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It’s all well and good to go looking for extraterrestrials, but what are we going to say once we find them? A workshop at the University of Wyoming, “Writing for an Extraterrestrial Audience,” asks students how they would explain the human condition to interstellar visitors. More on the pedagogy of cross-species communications after the jump. More »
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Charley Lineweaver, a scientist with the SETI Institute, argued today that pure human vanity, not scientific evidence, leads us to believe that if humans were wiped off the face of the Earth some other species (probably an ape of some kind) would rise to fill the "intelligence niche" that we Homo sapiens currently occupy. He calls this the "Planet of the Apes hypothesis," and believes that life here on Earth has already shown it to be false. That means the way we're searching for extra-terrestrial life — or even the act of searching itself — is terribly misguided. More »
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If you've ever seen the movie Contact, you'll know the alien-hunter stereotype: quirky, visionary loners who sit up all night listening to static, hoping for the signal that will change the world. That's probably not far off from real life, except that SETI (that's Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) scientists are getting creative. Here at the Astrobiology Science Conference, 2008, they're presenting new ways of looking for little green men, including watching for signs of alien lasers, infrared signals, and even gravity waves. More »
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