The idea of close encounters of the zero'th kind - which is to say, not a close encounter at all, but simply… — Seth Shostak Back 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 American 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 Despite 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 Actually 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 About Copy Share Image
Thanks to the fact that the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, and invoking a bunch of Newtonian physics, you can deduce that… — Seth Shostak Bunch Copy Share Image
Hollywood usually guesses that extraterrestrials would only be interested in one of three things: (1) They want to breed with us, because… — Seth Shostak Because Copy Share Image
If you could drive straight down, into a tunnel bored through the crust of the planet, you'd hit this molten mess in… — Seth Shostak About Copy Share Image
The total number of people that do a job that has the same description as mine in the entire world is fewer… — Seth Shostak Conversation Copy Share Image
Many people suggest using mathematics to talk to the aliens, and Dutch computer scientist Alexander Ollongren has developed an entire language (Lincos)… — Seth Shostak Alexander Copy Share Image
I've often fantasized about visiting the Bahamian beach where Columbus first stumbled ashore in 1492. Sadly, no one knows where that beach… — Seth Shostak About Copy Share Image
The thing to keep in mind is that we're still in the very early days when it comes to the search for… — Seth Shostak Back Copy Share Image
Consider that the overwhelming majority of those 40,000 near-Earth asteroids are small enough to fit on the parking lot at the mall.… — Seth Shostak Armageddon Copy Share Image
Most of the things at the zoo don't look like us. We're one design that works. Our chimp pals sort of look… — Seth Shostak Basic Copy Share Image
Despite tantalizing suggestions of fossilized microbes in meteorites, puzzling and possibly biogenic methane gas in the martian atmosphere, and a long-standing controversy… — Seth Shostak Atmosphere Copy Share Image
It's the default premise in science: If you observe something in nature only once, you assume that what you've seen is typical.… — Seth Shostak Another Copy Share Image
The math is dead simple: it seems that the frequency of planets able to support life is roughly one percent. In other… — Seth Shostak Able 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 About 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 Able 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 Air 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 Against 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 Actually 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
There's no doubt that the Moon is more than a handy night light and a hair restorer for werewolves. It's responsible for… — Seth Shostak Dig Copy Share Image
Today's voguish threats, including climate change, population growth, massive war, and resource depletion, are all amenable to a fix if we act… — Seth Shostak Act Copy Share Image
Judging by informal observation, most young Americans burn up their spare time buffing their emotional IQ and self-esteem with social media and… — Seth Shostak About Copy Share Image
Humans have existed only for the last 0.001 percent of cosmic time. All of which says that - unless the Homo sapiens… — Seth Shostak Beyond Copy Share Image
Exploration is an oft-lauded human activity, and one that resonates in the same way that music and good stories do. It's hard-wired… — Seth Shostak Accept Copy Share Image
Plate tectonics is not all havoc and destruction. The slow movement of continents and ocean floors recycles carbon dioxide dissolved in the… — Seth Shostak Atmosphere Copy Share Image
Each year, thousands of UFOs are sighted and reported, which is an impressive tally of unidentified aerial phenomena. Surveys show that roughly… — Seth Shostak Aerial Copy Share Image
I got interested in astronomy at the age of 8 because I was looking at an atlas of the planets in my… — Seth Shostak Age Copy Share Image
It's worth noting that invoking God as the entity who set our universe in motion isn't contradicted by the data. Of course,… — Seth Shostak Being Copy Share Image
Any beings advanced enough to traverse interstellar distances are at least a thousand years beyond our technical level. Spending gobs of time… — Seth Shostak Advanced Copy Share Image
Heads are a good deal, and I think they would be a common feature. It's hard to think of species that don't… — Seth Shostak Although Copy Share Image
Sending greeting cards to aliens is hardly a new idea. In 2005, Craigslist solicited messages for broadcast to space by a transmitter… — Seth Shostak Alien Copy Share Image
Since the Renaissance, a concept called 'progress' has been baked into our society. Progress - founded on an accumulation of knowledge through… — Seth Shostak Accumulate 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 About Copy Share Image
