civilizations

Recent research utilizing the SETI Ellipsoid method with TESS observations has advanced the search for extraterrestrial intelligence by enhancing the detection of potential signals from advanced civilizations. Leveraging continuous sky surveys and precise distance measurements from Gaia, the study improves our ability to monitor for technosignatures, setting a foundation for expanded future searches and representing a significant leap forward in SETI research efforts.Researchers demonstrate that the SETI Ellipsoid method,…

Of all the questions that remain unanswered, the question of life in the Universe is surely the one that captures our attention the most.In a Universe whose observable edge is 46 billion light years away, is it even conceivable that we are alone, the sole planet among the millions and perhaps billions that are out there, where life has evolved, an oasis of life in the cosmic ocean?In the search for alien civilizations, researchers have proposed that it may be possible to use bright galactic events like supernovae to act…

Caves and rock shelters dot the mountains in the northwestern highlands of Thailand. Over 40 in Mae Hong Son province contain wooden coffins on stilts, dating back 1,000 – 2,300 years. Credit: © Selina CarlhoffAncient DNA helps researchers elucidate the structure of a prehistoric community from Southeast Asia.A mortuary practice known as Log Coffin culture characterizes the Iron Age of highland Pang Mapha in northwestern Thailand. Between 2,300 and 1,000 years ago, individuals were buried in large wooden coffins on…

The search for aliens and extra-terrestrial civilisations continues considering the laws of probability that suggest Earth is not the only planet in the universe where life exists.…

In the quest to find life beyond Earth, researchers are now considering both biological and technological markers, with a new focus on the role of oxygen. A study by Adam Frank and Amedeo Balbi in Nature Astronomy emphasizes the importance of oxygen not only for life but also for the development of advanced technology. They propose that significant oxygen levels are crucial for the emergence of “technospheres,” advanced technological realms on other planets, and that targeting oxygen-rich planets should be a priority in…

Couples in Mesopotamia could have been the first ones smooching as we know it. New research analyzing written records from the area reveals that people in the Cradle of Civilization could have participated in the oldest recorded acts of kissing.The Weirdest Thing Taylor Lautner Was Asked to Sign | io9 InterviewTroels Pank Arbøll from the University of Copenhagen and Sophie Lund Rasmussen from the University of Oxford examined cuneiform writing on clay tablets from Mesopotamiaand found mentions of kissing as early as 2500…

Population continuity and ghost genetic ancestries in pre-Hispanic Mexico. Ancient individuals who inhabited the northern frontier of Mesoamerica (NFM) before and after a 200-year period of severe droughts (shown in timeline) belong to a continuous population. This is in contrast to a previous hypothesis suggesting that hunter-gatherers from Aridoamerica replaced the populations at the NFM following the southward shift of its limits with Mesoamerica…

In a recent study submitted to the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, a pair of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) examine the likelihood of extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations intercepting outward transmissions from NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) that are aimed at five deep space spacecraft: Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, and New Horizons.Members of the public are free to track such…

Mobile phones are so ubiquitous that we typically don't think about how they work. They just do, much to our benefit, and sometimes annoyance.But the key to their function is a vast array of radio transmission towers.These cell towers span a large percentage of Earth's land surface, particularly in heavily populated areas, and they transmit microwave signals all the time.With all those cell towers emitting all those radio signals, a fun question to ask is whether those signals could be detected by an alien…

It has been over sixty years since Dr. Frank Drake (father of the Drake Equation) and his colleagues mounted the first Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) survey.This was known as Project Ozma, which relied on the "Big Ear" radio telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Greenbank, West Virginia, to look for signs of radio transmissions in Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani. Despite the many surveys conducted since then, no definitive evidence of technological activity (i.e.,…