g ABODES - Powerful evidence that life may still exist on Mars has been presented by NASA after the discovery that huge plumes of methane were being spurted into the planet's atmosphere. See article.
g LIFE - The search for life elsewhere in the solar system and beyond should include research to detect what some scientists call "weird" life, with biochemistry different from that of life on Earth, says a new report from the National Research Council. See article. Note: This article is from 2007.
g MESSAGE - If extraterrestrial aliens searched the heavens looking for beings like us, could they find us? Wouldn't it be like locating a needle in a haystack? See article.
g COSMICUS - A transparent roundworm experiment reveals biological effects of microgravity and space radiation, and could provide clues on protecting the health of human astronauts. See article.
g LEARNING - Here's a great educational tool for teaching astrobiology and various principles of science: COTI. COTI is an educational experiment in creation - students design an integrated world, alien life form and culture, and simulate contact with a future human society. One team constructs a solar system, a world and its ecology, an alien life form and its culture, basing each step on the previous one and utilizing the principles of science as a guide to imagination. The other team designs a future human colony, planetary or spacefaring, "creating and evolving" its culture as an exercise in cultural structure, dynamics and adaptation. Through a structured system of progressive revelation, the teams then simulate - and experience - contact between the two cultures in real time, exploring the problems and possibilities involved in inter-cultural encounters. See article.
