Imagine, if you will, that future humans manage to travel to other worlds and find… more humans.
According to one University of Cambridge astrobiologist, that scenario may be more likely than you’d think.
In a new interview with the BBC’s Science Focus magazine, an evolutionary palaeobiologist at the institution’s Department of Earth Sciences named Simon Conway Morris declared that researchers can “say with reasonable confidence” that human-like evolution has occurred in other locations around the universe.
Using spacecraft and ground-based facilities, Russian astronomers have inspected the Orion Bar photodissociation region, focusing on the mid-infrared emission from this source. Results of the study could help astronomers to better understand the evolution of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in space. The research was published November 10 on arXiv.org.
At a distance of about 1,300 light years away, the Orion Nebula is the nearest region of massive star formation to Earth, with a complex and extensive gas structure. It hosts the so-called “Orion Bar”—a ridge-like feature of gas and dust formed by the intense radiation from nearby, hot, young stars, which appears to be shaped like a bar.
The Orion Bar is a photodissociation region or photon-dominated region (PDR). In general, PDRs are regions in the interstellar medium (ISM) at the interface between hot ionized gas and cool molecular gas that are energetically dominated by non-ionizing ultraviolet photons.
The bestselling author and historian offers his predictions on how technology will alter the evolution of humans and change society. Anderson Cooper reports.
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“De-Extinction” Biotechnology & Conservation Biology — Ben Novak, Lead Scientist Revive & Restore
Ben Novak is Lead Scientist, at Revive & Restore (https://reviverestore.org/), a California-based non-profit that works to bring biotechnology to conservation biology with the mission to enhance biodiversity through the genetic rescue of endangered and extinct animals (https://reviverestore.org/what-we-do/ted-talk/).
Ben collaboratively pioneers new tools for genetic rescue and de-extinction, helps shape the genetic rescue efforts of Revive & Restore, and leads its flagship project, The Great Passenger Pigeon Comeback, working with collaborators and partners to restore the ecology of the Passenger Pigeon to the eastern North American forests. Ben uses his training in ecology and ancient-DNA lab work to contribute, hands-on, to the sequencing of the extinct Passenger Pigeon genome and to study important aspects of its natural history (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK2UlLsHkus&t=1s).
Ben’s mission in leading the Great Passenger Pigeon Comeback is to set the standard for de-extinction protocols and considerations in the lab and field. His 2018 review article, “De-extinction,” in the journal Genes, helped to define this new term. More recently, his treatment, “Building Ethical De-Extinction Programs—Considerations of Animal Welfare in Genetic Rescue” was published in December 2019 in The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics: 1st Edition.
Ben’s work at Revive & Restore also includes extensive education and outreach, the co-convening of seminal workshops, and helping to develop the Avian and Black-footed Ferret Genetic Rescue programs included in the Revive & Restore Catalyst Science Fund.
Ben graduated from Montana State University studying Ecology and Evolution. He later trained in Paleogenomics at the McMaster University Ancient DNA Centre in Ontario. This is where he began his study of passenger pigeon DNA, which then contributed to his Master’s thesis in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California Santa Cruz. This work also formed the foundational science for de-extinction.
Ben also worked at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory–CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) to advance genetic engineering protocols for the pigeon.
The authors present a high-resolution palaeomagnetic record for a Late Cretaceous limestone in Italy. They claim that their record robustly shows a ~12° true polar wander oscillation between 86 and 78 Ma, with the greatest excursion at 84–82 Ma.
The authors propose a new framework, deep evolutionary reinforcement learning, evolves agents with diverse morphologies to learn hard locomotion and manipulation tasks in complex environments, and reveals insights into relations between environmental physics, embodied intelligence, and the evolution of rapid learning.
Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? It’s a question that has been debated for centuries, if not millenia. But it is only recently that we’ve had an actual chance of finding out, with initiatives such as Seti (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) using radio telescopes to actively listen for radio messages from alien civilisations.
What should we expect to detect if these searches succeed? My suspicion is that it is very unlikely to be little green men—something I speculated about at a talk at a Breakthrough Listen (a Seti project) conference.
Suppose there are other planets where life began and that it followed something like a Darwinian evolution (which needen’t be the case). Even then, it’s highly unlikely that the progression of intelligence and technology would happen at exactly the same pace as on Earth. If it lagged significantly behind, then that planet would plainly reveal no evidence of extraterrestrial life to our radio telescopes. But around a star older than the Sun, life could have had a head start of a billion years or more.
Live human brain tissue — generously donated by brain surgery patients with epilepsy or tumors — is yielding incredible #neuroscience insights. A study on cells… See More.
As part of an international effort to map cell types in the brain, scientists identified increased diversity of neurons in regions of the human brain that expanded during our evolution.
On Oct. 16 2021, our Lucy spacecraft will begin its journey to visit a record-breaking number of asteroids. The 12-year mission starts from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center where it’ll launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket. From there, Lucy will be the first spacecraft to visit a record number of destinations in independent orbits around the sun – one main belt asteroid and seven of Jupiter’s Trojan Asteroids. Like the mission’s namesake – the fossilized human ancestor, “Lucy,” whose skeleton provided unique insight into humanity’s evolution – Lucy will revolutionize our knowledge of planetary origins and the formation of the solar system.
Lucy’s first launch attempt in its 21-day launch window is scheduled for 5:34 a.m. EDT on Oct. 16. Launch coverage starts at 5 a.m. EDT on NASA TV, the NASA app, and @NASA social media. Be a part of Lucy’s historic launch day by using the hashtag #LucyMission!
Producer/Editor: Lacey Young. Music: Universal Production Music
