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New "Drake Equation" Selects Between Alien Worlds
An anonymous reader writes 'A mathematical equation that counts habitats suitable for alien life could complement the Drake equation, which estimates the probability of finding intelligent alien beings elsewhere in the galaxy. That equation, developed in 1960 by US astronomer Frank Drake, estimates the probability of intelligent life existing elsewhere in our galaxy by considering the number of stars with planets that could support life. The new equation, under development by planetary scientists at the Open University in Milton Keynes, England, aims to develop a single index for habitability based on the presence of energy, solvents such as water, raw materials like carbon, and whether or not there are benign environmental conditions.'
Would it be possible to use collaborative filtering, and meta data provided by xkcd to produce a "These xkcd strips may be obligatory for this article",
for sites such as slashdot?
based on the presence of energy, solvents such as water, raw materials like carbon and whether or no there are benign environmental conditions
Aren't there extremophiles on Earth that already lack some if not all of these attributes?
No.
No life without water and raw materials. And, as for "benign environmental conditions," that's a little under-defined, but in general, the entire Earth should be called "benign" by the standards of the rest of the solar system.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Right, except for that whole "speed of light" thing, puts a real damper on signal propagation between these stellar neurons.
Given the estimated age of the universe, such a nervous system could have gone through *maybe* the equivalent of a month of thought in a biological brain, which isn't much.
You'd be surprised how easy it is to rule out hypotheses like this.
I'd be surprised indeed.
Will you do it?
Really? I would have thought the "Der! Hooman iz teh stoopid" posts would be Redundant around here by now. Or have they ascended (read: descended) to the rank of Obligatory?
And I always suspect most posts like that translate to "Other people dare to deviate from my perfect, genius opinions, dammit, and therefore humanity has no intelligence!"