* Astronomy

Title: A Numerical Testbed for Hypotheses of Extraterrestrial Life and Intelligence
Authors: Duncan Forgan

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has been heavily influenced by solutions to the Drake Equation, which returns an integer value for the number of communicating civilisations resident in the Milky Way, and by the Fermi Paradox, glibly stated as: "If they are there, where are they?". Both rely on using average values of key parameters, such as the mean signal lifetime of a communicating civilisation. A more accurate answer must take into account the distribution of stellar, planetary and biological attributes in the galaxy, as well as the stochastic nature of evolution itself. This paper outlines a method of Monte Carlo realisation which does this, and hence allows an estimation of the distribution of key parameters in SETI, as well as allowing a quantification of their errors (and the level of ignorance therein). Furthermore, it provides a means for competing theories of life and intelligence to be compared quantitatively.

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Over 500 Bebo users today had messages sent out into space in a bid to make contact with extra-terrestrials.
The social networking site this morning broadcast the messages from a giant RT-70 radio telescope in the Ukraine.
Within 1.7 seconds the messages - picked to reflect life on earth - had passed the moon and were on their way to the planet Gliese 581C, some 129 trillion miles away.

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Messages are to be beamed to a planet 20 light years from Earth in the hope they will reach intelligent alien life.
Some 501 photos, drawings and text messages are being transmitted by a giant radio-telescope in Ukraine normally used to track asteroids.
The target planet was chosen as it is thought capable of supporting life.
Any reply to the messages - collated through a competition by the social networking website Bebo - would not reach Earth for 40 years.

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A Johns Hopkins astronomer is a member of a team briefing fellow scientists about plans to use new technology to take advantage of recent, promising ideas on where to search for possible extraterrestrial intelligence in our galaxy.
Richard Conn Henry, a professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins' Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, is joining forces with Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute and Steven Kilston of the Henry Foundation Inc., a Silver Spring, Md., think tank, to search a swath of the sky known as the ecliptic plane. They propose to use new Allen Telescope Array, operated as a partnership between the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., and the Radio Astronomy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.

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