Lifeboat Foundation

Are we alone?

We are two scientists who study exoplanets and astrobiology. Thanks in large part to next-generation telescopes like Webb, researchers like us will soon be able to measure the chemical makeup of atmospheres of planets around other stars. The hope is that one or more of these planets will have a chemical signature of life.

Life might exist in the Solar System where there is liquid water — like the subsurface aquifers on Mars or in the oceans of Jupiter’s moon Europa. However, searching for life in these places is incredibly difficult, as they are hard to reach, and detecting life would require sending a probe to return physical samples.

Continue reading “The best ways to find life using the Webb telescope, according to two astronomers” »

Scientists recently discovered thousands of ancient unknown bacteria lurking in Hawaii’s lava caves and geothermal vents.

Hawai’i is home to multiple lava caves, lava tubes, and geothermal vents. And a new study that researchers published in Frontiers in Microbiology reveals that these caves have higher bacteria diversity than expected. Researchers have discovered thousands of ancient unknown bacteria lurking within the caves.

Scientists say that these bacteria ecosystems represent how life might have existed during Earth’s early ages. They also say it could give us insight into how life on Mars looked before losing much of its atmosphere. The caves, home to lava tubes and geothermal vents on the island, house ancient unknown bacteria, unlike anything we’ve ever seen.

Continue reading “Researchers discovered thousands of unknown bacteria in Hawaiian caves” »

An international team of researchers has discovered 1.2-billion-year-old groundwater deep in a gold-and uranium-producing mine in Moab Khotsong, South Africa, shedding more light on how life is sustained below the Earth’s surface and how it may thrive on other planets.

The findings were published earlier this week in the journal Nature Communications.

“For the first time, we have insight into how energy stored deep in the Earth’s subsurface can be released and distributed more broadly through its crust over time,” says Oliver Warr, research associate in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Toronto and lead author of the study. “Think of it as a Pandora’s Box of helium-and-hydrogen-producing power, one that we can learn how to harness for the benefit of the deep biosphere on a global scale.”

In this podcast we meet the CEO and co-founder of First Light Fusion.

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The Fermi Paradox contemplates the weirdness of our galaxy seemingly being devoid of intelligent alien life, but Many Worlds Theory, Multiverses, Parallel Universe, and Alternate Realities may radically alter our thinking on Aliens & SETI.

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Continue reading “The Fermi Paradox: Multiverse” »

Here’s an intriguing idea. What if you were informed that everything in your life was pre-planned? Even crazier, what if your history, present, and future are all taking place right now?

An incredible new theory established as the “block universe” theory asserts that time does not actually “flow like a river”; rather, everything is ever-present.

Dr. Bradford Skow, a philosophy professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proposes that if we “look down” on the cosmos as if it were a piece of paper, we would see time stretched out in all directions, just as we perceive space at any given time.

While we haven’t found any evidence of alien life yet, that doesn’t mean it’s not out there, beyond our reach. Now, a team of researchers has put together a mathematical model showing aliens could potentially be communicating across space – via quantum physics.

Efforts are well underway to make quantum communications a reality here on Earth. The idea is that quantum mechanics provide certain properties that would make information transfer inherently faster and more secure than regular systems… if we can get it to work.

One of the major hurdles to overcome before quantum networks can be established is that they’re very fragile and susceptible to interference. According to this latest study, such networks could fly across space without breaking up.

Meet Daniela de Paulis, the newest member of the SETI Institute’s Artist in Residence program. Daniela is a media artist who is also a licensed radio operator and radio telescope operator at the Dwingeloo radio telescope in the Netherlands. Fusing radio technologies, neuroscience, and space research, Daniela creates pioneering art-science projects that include live performances, virtual reality (VR), electroencephalograms (EEG), and audience participation. During this SETI Live chat with SETI AIR Director Bettina Forget, Daniela will discuss her recent works COGITO in Space and OPTICKS, and give us a sneak peek of the project she has planned to complete during her time at the AIR program.