In general, when moviemakers talk to scientists, they usually see them as a resource to solve particular technical problems or script problems… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Five centuries ago, Copernicus upset humanity's applecart with the news that the Earth is not the center of the cosmos. It could… — Seth Shostak Astronomy Copy Share Image
Our brains are continuing to evolve, and perhaps a few tens of thousands of years from now, our descendants will walk around… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Engineers are now experimenting with 4,096-line TV systems, suggesting that with the next generation of sets you'll be able to count the… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
It's always a tough call deciding whether, as a scientist, you should argue publicly with the creationists. It's a dilemma that I… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Junk, redundancy, and inefficiency characterize astrophysical signals. It seems they characterize cells and sea lions, too. These biological constructions have lots of… — Seth Shostak Being Copy Share Image
The planets and moons of our solar system are blatantly visible because they reflect sunlight. Without the nearby Sun, these planets would… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
It seems obvious that if a species has the brainpower for speech, along with the sort of appendages that can manipulate a… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
We're interested in things that have big teeth, and you can see the evolutionary value of that, and you can also see… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The central region of the Milky Way, known as the bulge, is stuffed with literally tens of billions of stars. And most… — Seth Shostak Astronomy Copy Share Image
Consider: Life arose on Earth close to four billion years ago. Four billion years of slithering, swimming, and soaring life forms. But… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
On Mars, where the air is spare - a hundred times less dense than on Earth - someone could hear you scream.… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Buying insurance is no one's idea of fun. And it's especially easy to berate something as funky-sounding as writing checks to defend… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Mining asteroids is a well-oiled trope of science-fiction. But someday, actually doing it will make economic sense. Many of the essential metals… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Some pundits have proposed that the aliens have come here to breed with us. Apparently, too much bike riding or something similar… — Seth Shostak Alien Copy Share Image
The overwhelming bulk of the cosmos is deathly quiet. But here and there - on worlds where matter is thick and conditions… — Seth Shostak Astronomy Copy Share Image
Admittedly, it would take industrial-grade chutzpah and a massive dose of malevolence for anyone to bulldoze the spot where Neil Armstrong stepped… — Seth Shostak Admittedly Copy Share Image
Virtually any pointed edifice is considered a candidate for alien engineering. After all, how could the Egyptians or Mayans have possibly stacked… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
If aliens are really hanging out in our 'hood, it's hard to imagine any other fact more worthy of study. If not,… — Seth Shostak Alien Copy Share Image
While human space travel is daunting, machines - with their indefinitely long lifetimes - could travel the galaxy. It might make little… — Seth Shostak Computers Copy Share Image
Note to academics: Aristarchus' track record of astronomical research would probably have guaranteed him tenure somewhere, if tenure had been invented. His… — Seth Shostak Academics Copy Share Image
It's hardly a secret that I'm skeptical of declarations that the aliens are out and about on our planet. Still, I try… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Three-fourths of the universe is hydrogen, and oxygen is incredibly abundant, too. So H2O is something you can find nearly everywhere. — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
In the four years since its launch, Kepler has chalked up 122 new and confirmed planets. It's also caught the scent of… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Disasters happen. We still have no way to eliminate earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, floods or droughts. We cope as best we can by… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
It bears mentioning that the Milky Way is only one of 150 billion galaxies visible to our telescopes - and each of… — Seth Shostak Bears Copy Share Image
Faith is a personal matter, and should never be a cudgel to stifle inquiry. We tried that approach about 1,200 years ago.… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
A practical way to travel between the stars is a must-have for space opera, and a sine qua non for our frequently… — Seth Shostak Astronomy Copy Share Image
A factory that can turn carbon nanotubes into a sheet a yard wide and long enough to stretch one-fourth of the way… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Charles Darwin sailed around the world for two years on the 'Beagle,' and he had quite a bit of interest in things… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The bottom line is, like, one in five stars has at least one planet where life might spring up. That's a fantastically… — Seth Shostak Astronomy Copy Share Image
I think a lot of kids are interested in two science subjects: dinosaurs and aliens. The reason is almost genetic; we're hard-wired… — Seth Shostak Alien Copy Share Image
Mountains aren't eternal: even the most imposing massifs are smoothed away by weathering in a few hundred million years or less. Plate… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Just knowing that there's somebody else out there - that what's happened on this planet has also happened in many other places… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The idea of close encounters of the zero'th kind - which is to say, not a close encounter at all, but simply… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Once typecast as the indispensable altarpiece of a well-appointed living room, TVs have infected every human environment. The average American household has… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Our brains are wired to interpret shapes as faces and bodies. That's why people see the Virgin Mary in the clouds or… — Seth Shostak Body Copy Share Image
Despite the impression you may have from watching too much TV, movies are not about reproducing reality. They're about telling stories. — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
The bottom line is that the position of the Sun relative to the stars slowly changes for any given date, and over… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
About the only things that are unique to Earth are our biota and our culture. If aliens ever come here, they'd most… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
