It's alive!

[mgc1961]

WASHINGTON — All around the world - from the deep gold mines of South Africa to the far-seeing telescopes in Chile's Atacama Desert, from the frigid glaciers of Antarctica to the halls of the world's best universities and research institutions - scientists are on a quest unlike anything we've seen before. Tens of thousands of researchers are involved in the effort, one which three years of reporting has convinced me will be - or certainly could be - the big idea of our era.

This hidden-in-plain-sight campaign is the renewed scientific push to find signs of life, or of past life, beyond the confines of our planet. The umbrella science that organizes the effort is called astrobiology, and the field is making surprising and compelling progress. It still may well be years before science finds anything that is clearly extraterrestrial life, but scientists are more convinced than ever of the existence of alien life, and they have the newly sophisticated (and still quickly evolving) tools and knowledge to actually find it.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/06/07/115370/reaching-for-the-stars-its-alive.html#ixzz1OgjvGf33


Let's hope we find some intelligent cosmic life because our search for intelligent Earth life hasn't turned up much more than a bowl of half eaten cicadas and a pile of used handy wipes.