Extraterrestrial Life

Where Are All the Aliens? Struggling and Hustling, Just Like Us

Conventional wisdom has it that aliens should be either everywhere, or nowhere. A new model suggests they can be both.

Popular Science

DNA Gets a New — and Bigger — Genetic Alphabet

DNA is spelled out with four letters, or bases. Researchers have now built a system with eight. It may hold clues to the potential for life elsewhere in the universe and could also expand our capacity to store digital data on Earth.

The New York Times

Is the Universe Pro-Life?

An old and profound existential question is receiving new interest from the scientific community: Was the emergence of life in the universe an improbable event, or the opposite, an inevitable one?

Quartz

Why Exploring Alien Life Is No Longer a Laughing Matter

Culturally and scientifically, we’re no longer giggling about alien life.

The Globe and Mail

Why a Harvard Astronomer Is Spouting Farfetched Ideas About Aliens

He threw his weight behind the theory that ‘Oumuamua might be an artifact from another civilization, not just an unusual space rock.

The Boston Globe

It’s Time to Start Taking the Search for E.T. Seriously, Astronomers Say

Some scientists are pushing for NASA to make looking for alien technology an official goal.

Science News

What Is Life?

A podcast about the really, really big questions.

Carl Zimmer

Have Aliens Found Us? A Harvard Astronomer on the Mysterious Interstellar Object ‘Oumuamua

Avi Loeb discusses why we need to consider the possibility that the object was sent by aliens, the dangers of unscientific speculation, and what belief in an advanced extraterrestrial civilization has in common with faith in God.

The New Yorker

A Weird, Immensely Powerful Radio Signal Is Perplexing Astronomers

Known as fast radio bursts, the peculiar short bursts of radio waves are reaching antennas here on Earth.

Salon

Thinking About Distant Civilizations Isn’t Speculative

Avi Loeb on the mysterious interstellar body ‘Oumuamua.

DER SPIEGEL

How to Approach the Problem of ‘Oumuamua

The first interstellar object ever found provides an excellent test of the scientific process.

Scientific American

Computing the Origin of Life

Life’s origins could one day be explained thanks to computers.

Astrobiology Magazine

A $100-Million Startup Shares Incredible Plan to Propel Spacecraft With Giant Lasers

Breakthrough Starshot is moving ahead with an audacious vision for space exploration.

Big Think

Scientists Identify Vast Underground Ecosystem Containing Billions of Micro-Organisms

Global team of scientists find ecosystem below earth that is twice the size of world’s oceans.

The Guardian

The Search for Alien Life Begins in Earth’s Oldest Desert

In the Martian landscape that is the Atacama desert, astrobiologists are learning how to recognize extraterrestrial organisms.

The Atlantic

On Being Human: Mythic and Scientific Perspectives

A dialogue with ICE at Dartmouth director Marcelo Gleiser and three guests: physicist and novelist Tasneem Husain, anthropology professor Jeremy DeSilva, and planetary scientist David Grinspoon.

Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement

Could Oumuamua Be an Extra-Terrestrial Solar Sail?

The study — “Could Solar Radiation Pressure Explain ‘Oumuamua’s Peculiar Acceleration?” — was conducted by Shmuel Bialy and Abraham Loeb.

Universe Today

Oxygen-Rich Liquid Water May Exist on Mars

Brines suffused with the life-giving gas could offer hope for past and even present microbes on the Red Planet, according to a new study.

Scientific American

Science Strategies Chart Course for Detecting Life on Other Worlds

The National Academies has released science strategies for astrobiology and the study of exoplanets. The documents recommend steps to maintain the current rapid rate of progress in those fields and to enable the detection of life elsewhere in the universe.

American Institute of Physics

Cometlike Objects Could Be Spreading Life From Star to Star Throughout the Milky Way

In the new study, Idan Ginsburg, along with astrophysicists Manasvi Lingam and Abraham Loeb, also of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, calculated the chances of such objects delivering life to an alien world.

Science

Search for Alien Life Should Be a Fundamental Part of NASA, New Report Urges

A blue-ribbon committee finds the science of astrobiology is worthy of deep integration into the space agency’s exploration efforts.

Scientific American