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Stephen Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner have announced Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million project that will increase the intensity of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (or their signals):
Speaking at the launch, Prof Hawking said: "Somewhere in the cosmos, perhaps, intelligent life may be watching these lights of ours, aware of what they mean. "Or do our lights wander a lifeless cosmos - unseen beacons, announcing that here, on one rock, the Universe discovered its existence. Either way, there is no bigger question. It's time to commit to finding the answer - to search for life beyond Earth. We are alive. We are intelligent. We must know."
Those behind the initiative claim it to be the biggest scientific search ever undertaken for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth. They plan to cover 10 times more of the sky than previous programmes and scan five times more of the radio spectrum, 100 times faster. It will involve access to two of the world's most powerful telescopes. - the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia.
Yuri Milner is known for his creation and funding of Breakthrough Prizes, which award $3 million to researchers for achievements in the life sciences, physics, and mathematics. Also reported at Washington Post, NPR, El Reg, and Scientific American.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday July 21 2015, @02:31AM
This is part of the problem, perhaps. The only model we know for evolving intelligence and technology is the model of the apex predator. *noms some hot wings*. In order for the perfect apex predator to evolve (i.e. h. sapiens), it must crush all other competition and dominate its environment.
It's curious that no other members of the homo genus survive. I wonder how it happened. Apparently, non-African races interbred with the neanderthals more frequently, but how were they ultimately driven extinct? Various authors have attempted to construct stories set 100,000 years ago or even 14,000 years ago at the height of the last ice age, but they have no empirical/archaeological data to guide them.
Unfortunately, this leads to, as Sagan would say, “dangerous evolutionary baggage.” Even now, we turn against ourselves, creating stupid distinctions between different breeds or subspecies. We're all highly evolved apex predators, but that also means we can't cooperate on a global scale. Each tribe must vie for dominance and territory. Different factions in each tribe create contention, drama, and perhaps the crowning achievement of our species, agitprop.
I'm not superstitious, but occasionally the writings of old as collected in the Bible hit a chord: Deuteronomy 3:19 MSG [biblegateway.com]:
I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live.
(Ok, I admit, I wouldn't have quoted that if not for Sagan.)
Where it goes has always been up to us, appointed (perhaps self-appointed, but rightly so, because we wield the necessary science and technology i.e. fruits of the Tree of Knowledge) custodians of this planet. See also Genesis 1:28 MSG [biblegateway.com]:
God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”
Gurren Lagann [wikipedia.org] presents the problem at hand as the “Spiral Nemesis.” We will increase our majesty until it destroys us. Yet, the series ends with an abstract hope that perhaps we are clever enough to hack our own nature.
It's all up to us.
(Score: 1) by linkdude64 on Wednesday July 22 2015, @04:52PM
Never thought I'd see an anime cited in any comment modded +5 on a respectable website. Good on you, mate.