Science & the Big Questions

A New Frontier Is Opening in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

The reason we haven’t found life elsewhere in the universe is simple: We haven’t really looked until now.

The Washington Post

Topics: Exoplanets Extraterrestrial Life Technology

Let’s Search for Alien Probes, Not Just Alien Signals

“Multimessenger” SETI would broaden the quest to find celestial companions.

Scientific American

Topics: Avi Loeb Extraterrestrial Life Technology

What Alien Life Could Teach Us About Humanity

Have we found extraterrestrial life but not recognized it?

Freethink

Topics: Extraterrestrial Life Origin of Life

Potential Signs of Life on Venus Are Fading as Astronomers Downgrade Their Original Claims

Amid mounting criticism, researchers find far lower levels of mysterious phosphine in reanalysis of telescope data.

Science

Topics: Extraterrestrial Life Planets

How Many Alien Civilizations Are Out There? A New Galactic Survey Holds a Clue

The Milky Way is full of habitable real estate, with roughly half of all sunlike stars hosting Earth-size worlds that could be friendly to life.

National Geographic

Topics: Exoplanets Extraterrestrial Life Habitability Stars

Promising Sign of Life on Venus Might Not Exist After All

The detection of phosphine gas in the clouds of Venus — a possible sign of life — might be due to a fluke in data processing, new analyses suggest.

National Geographic

Topics: Extraterrestrial Life Planets

Scientists Find Possible Sign Of Life On Venus

Traces of a gas in Venus’ clouds could indicate some form of life may exist there.

Axios

Topics: Extraterrestrial Life Planets

DNA Nearly a Billion Years Old Is Being Warped to Figure Out How Life Could Evolve on Other Planets

Betül Kaçar and her team studied what happened when E.coli cells were evolutionarily undone and then had to re-evolve.

SyFy Wire

Topics: Evolutionary Mechanisms Extraterrestrial Life Genetic Engineering Origin of Life Synthetic Life

3 Great Mysteries About Life on Mars

How habitable was early Mars? Why did it become less hospitable? And could there be life there now?

The New York Times

Topics: Extraterrestrial Life Habitability Mars

What Is an Individual? Biology Seeks Clues in Information Theory

To recognize strange extraterrestrial life and solve biological mysteries on this planet, scientists are searching for an objective definition for life’s basic units.

Quanta Magazine

Topics: Evolutionary Theory Extraterrestrial Life Information Origin of Life

An Audacious Explanation for Fast Radio Bursts

It’s a long shot, but could at least some of these energy blasts from across the universe come from extraterrestrial civilizations?

Scientific American

Topics: Avi Loeb Extraterrestrial Life Galaxies Universe

Life on Earth Is a Sketchy Guide to an Alien Civilization

Any assumptions about properties like intelligence or agency that we make based on what we currently know about life on Earth are on exceedingly shaky ground.

Nautilus

Topics: Caleb Scharf Extraterrestrial Life

Scientists Move to Find Alien Civilizations Using “Technosignatures”

There are specific marks on a planet that intelligent life may leave. To find technological civilizations among the stars, we just need to know what to look for.

Forbes

Topics: Exoplanets Extraterrestrial Life Technology

Is Anybody Down There?

Paul Davies makes the case for looking Earthward.

Cosmos

Topics: Extraterrestrial Life Technology

Planets With Hydrogen-Rich Atmospheres Could Harbor Life

Lab experiments show that yeast and E. coli survive and reproduce in hydrogen-rich conditions.

Science News

Topics: Exoplanets Extraterrestrial Life Habitability

It Takes a Cosmos to Make a Human

To speak with Jill Tarter is to begin to grasp the creative majesty of SETI and what’s relevant now in the ancient question: “Are we alone in the universe?”

On Being

Topics: Extraterrestrial Life Technology

Quantum SETI

Vast data sets and machine learning could link SETI to quantum computing

Life Unbounded, Scientific American

Topics: Caleb Scharf Extraterrestrial Life

Could a Habitable Planet Orbit a Black Hole?

Theorists say it’s technically possible, but it would be a weird place to live.

Science

Topics: Black Holes Extraterrestrial Life Habitability

AI and the Future of Your Mind

Philosopher Susan Schneider discusses some of the complexities surrounding the development of artificial intelligence.