The bottom line is that finding orphan planets - small, faint, and located who-knows-where - is not for the faint of heart.… — Seth Shostak 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
We're not just any star stuff, most of which is humdrum hydrogen and listless helium. Our bodies include fancier ingredients like carbon,… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
I studied Latin in high school, and I was reading stuff from Cicero. And that signal took a few thousand years to… — 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
Television is ephemeral, a fact that some will find reassuring. But earthlings will continue to pump the kilowatts into the ether. And… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Consider: The human genome consists of about 3.3 billion base pairs. Since there are only four types of pair, that amounts to… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
When it comes to brains, size matters. It's not all that matters, of course. Whales and dolphins have brains that are larger… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Every day, the temperature of Sol's surface increases by five billionths of a degree, a change of no consequence for thousands of… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Our computers double in capability on time scales of only a few years. It's hardly outrageous to believe that we will successfully… — Seth Shostak Copy Share Image
Very few societies on Earth developed science as we know it today. On the other hand, the number is not zero -… — Seth Shostak 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
Studying Sol's interior by looking for analogous patterns on its incandescent face is known as helioseismology, an active - if largely unpronounceable - research… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
Some pundits have proposed that the aliens have come here to breed with us. Apparently, too much bike riding or something similar has rendered… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
As far as I can tell, the only unambiguous consequence of the claimed invasion of Earth by beings from another star system has been… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
Look, science is hard, it has a reputation of being hard, and the facts are, it is hard, and that's the result of 400… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
Give consideration to the fact that alien astronomers could have scrutinized Earth for more than 4 billion years without detecting any radio signals, despite… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
In a movie, it's often important to have aliens whose gestures and facial expressions can be 'read' by humans. And in the days before… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
Sure, nobody will make a fortune if we figure out why the Big Bang happened. But just about everyone would like to know. — Seth Shostak Copy Share
If you could drive straight down, into a tunnel bored through the crust of the planet, you'd hit this molten mess in about an… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
While I have always thought that the motivation for looking for E.T. was both self-evident and patently worthy, it's possible that I'm a victim… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
I studied Latin in high school, and I was reading stuff from Cicero. And that signal took a few thousand years to get to… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
About the only things that are unique to Earth are our biota and our culture. If aliens ever come here, they'd most likely be… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
This plucky NASA telescope is able to find planets en masse. If you compare planet hunting to prospecting for gold, then Kepler is equivalent… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
The most attractive habitats for synthetic sentience might be the vicinities of exceptional sources of energy - for example black holes, or even the… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
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 our neighborhoods… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
Plate tectonics is not all havoc and destruction. The slow movement of continents and ocean floors recycles carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans back… — Seth Shostak Copy Share
