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10 SETI Messages That We May Not Want to Receive

An exploration of alternative SETI messages that may not say hello.

https://www.patreon.com/johnmichaelgodier.

Papers:

“Searching for Interstellar Communications” Cocconi and Morrison, 1959.

http://www.bigear.org/vol1no1/interste.htm.

“Intelligent life in the Universe” By Carl Sagan and Iosef Shklovski, 1962.

The Fermi Paradox: Firstborn

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As ancient and vast as the Universe is, it seems like some alien race arose in the galaxy long before us, but who rose before them? What would the cosmos be like for the first civilization to arise, and what if it is us?

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Listen or Download the audio of this episode from Soundcloud: Episode’s Audio-only version: https://soundcloud.com/isaac-arthur-148927746/fermi-paradox-firstborn.
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Credits:
The Fermi Paradox: Firstborn.
Episode 242; June 11, 2020

Writers:

Bioforming and Gene Tailoring

A deep look at some of the truly advanced and surprising options that might become available to us as we improve our skill with genetic engineering, ranging from altering humans to adapting life to live on alien planets or to serve as machines. We will also look at methods for doing genetic engineering, such as DNA printing and CRISPR, as well as consider some of the ethical concerns associated to using this technology.

Watch Cody Drink Cyanide: https://www.youtube.com/v/bWNpO5vvhpk.

Visit Answers with Joe Scott: https://www.youtube.com/user/jnightandday.

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Cover Art by Jakub Grygier: https://www.artstation.com/artist/jakub_grygier

Can We Genetically Engineer Humans for Space?

Traveling far distances in space is difficult, but advances in jet propulsion and genetics are making it possible. Trace is joined by Dr. Kiki Sanford to discuss how by altering the genes in our own bodies, we can make ourselves more fit to survive on other planets!

Follow Kiki on Twitter: https://twitter.com/drkiki.
Check out her website: http://www.about.me/drkiki/

The Habitable Exoplanets Catalog.
http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog.

First Synthetic Yeast Chromosome Revealed.
http://www.nature.com/news/first-synthetic-yeast-chromosome-revealed-1.14941
“It took geneticist Craig Venter 15 years and US $40 million to synthesize the genome of a bacterial parasite. Today, an academic team made up mostly of undergraduate students reports the next leap in synthetic life: the redesign and production of a fully functional chromosome from the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.”

Reworking the Human Genome So People Can Colonize Other Planets.
http://phys.org/news/2014-03-reworking-human-genome-people-colonize.html.
“If you haven’t thought about reworking the human genome so people can colonize other planets, don’t worry. Plenty of people are on it.”

Genes and Galaxies.

Taking quantum control of life’s building blocks

Life (as we know it) is based on carbon. Despite its ubiquity, this important element still holds plenty of secrets, on earth and in the heavens above us. For example, astrophysicists like Columbia’s Daniel Wolf Savin who study interstellar clouds want to understand how the chemicals, including carbon, swirling within these nebulous aggregations of gas and dust form the stars and planets that dot our universe and give rise to organic life.

Tianwen-1 and Zhurong, China’s Mars orbiter and rover

China’s first Mars mission will search for pockets of water beneath the surface that could host life.


As China’s first Mars mission, is uniquely ambitious. No nation had ever attempted to send an orbiter and rover to Mars on the first try. But China succeeded, making a historic victory.

Tianwen-1 arrived in Mars orbit as a single spacecraft. Once on Mars, the landing platform extended a ramp, allowing the Zhurong rover to roll gently onto the surface—similar to the way China’s Chang’e Moon rovers are deployed.

When did the Zhurong rover land on Mars?

Zhurong successfully landed on the Red Planet on May 14. The rover touched down on Utopia Planitia—the vast Martian plain where NASA’s Viking 2 spacecraft landed in the 1970s, and the site of a shipbuilding yard in the Star Trek universe.

China’s ‘alien’ signal almost certainly came from humans, project researcher says

The possibility also remains that if aliens are sending us, or unintentionally leaking, signals across the vast expanse of the cosmos, they may not be encoded in radio waves, but in ways that we haven’t yet developed the technology to understand.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if we were on the wrong track. If you look at the history of SETI, the original ideas proposed around 200 years ago were things like ‘let’s build some big fires on Earth’; ‘let’s have some big mirrors that reflect sunlight to the Martians’ or ‘let’s build some mile-long right-angled triangles to show aliens we know about Pythagorean Theorem,’ and now we look back and say those guys were idiots,” Werthimer said. “So, what’s to say that 200 years from now people won’t look back at us and ask why we didn’t use tachyons or subspace communication? But you’ve got to do what you know how to do.”

Despite the dispiriting likelihood that these signals have an Earthbound source, SETI astronomers are still fairly confident that we’re not alone in the universe. And that one day, we may dig up something real amid all of our own backchatter.

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