I’m always happy to see potential evidence for extra-terrestrial life (especially intelligent life), however unlikely it may be. I’ve got a deep-seated hope that we’re not alone in the universe and I suppose that I’m always on the lookout for something to confirm this. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find anything that doesn’t fall foul of either Occam’s Razor or my built-in bullshit detector. The jury’s still out on this one.

If we do find life on Mars, the next question will be whether or not it’s a long lost cousin, or an unrelated family. Mars and Earth have exchanged matter in the past, so it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that someone small once hitched a ride. The discovery of ambiguous structures inside a meteorite from Mars some years back fuelled speculation that micro-organisms may have made the crossing, but the evidence was controversial.

Without wanting to reduce the importance of discovering (comparatively) close relatives elsewhere in the solar system, I’d hope that any life discovered on Mars proved to have evolved independently. Although we’d not be greeting our alien peers, this would imply that life is fairly common and would provide support for the more optimistic values assigned to variables in the Drake equation (n_e and f_l in particular), which in turn would make the Fermi Paradox more mysterious. And I’m a fan of mysteries as well as aliens, so that’s no bad thing in itself.

Also breaking today was the news that two – not one, two – of Virgin trains new high-speed tilting trains had broken down in a highly embarrassing incident for the company. Boo!

Now, would you get on one of their spacecraft?

It’s amazing how such a dangerous thing can have such beauty.

NASA today released the best “baby picture” of the Universe ever taken, which contains such stunning detail that it may be one of the most important scientific results of recent years.

The new cosmic portrait — capturing the afterglow of the Big Bang, called the cosmic microwave background — was captured by scientists using NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) during a sweeping 12-month observation of the entire sky.

(Via skimble, who also makes a good point.)

Charlie Stross comes up with an interesting suggestion for the future of the House of Lords after this weeks rather ridiculous vote.

Orcinus looks like an interesting blog. Operated by David Neiwert, a freelance journo based over in the states, he writes about “policy, culture and journalism in the 21st century”, often at depth. His recent series of articles (ongoing) on fascism are particularly interesting.

Another potentially interesting site is politX, who “discuss and reflect political issues across the world”.

A very thoughtful piece inspired by the Columbia tragedy, this time from Rael Dornfest.

It’s got to be done, and it has to be us; because if we ever shie away from it now that we have the opportunity and ability to do so, then we have already doomed ourselves to extinction. We’ve come too far to go back, and I think every single man and woman that has been in space understands that.

Dan Gilmor writing right in the wake of the disaster on Saturday.

Duncan Steel writing in today’s Guardian.

The technology to link spacecraft to the web is being tested on the current space shuttle mission and briefly turned the Columbia craft into a node on the net.

(…)

To test the technology the Columbia space shuttle was fitted with an embedded PC that has a 233 MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM and a solid-state 144 MB hard drive.

The computer is running Red Hat, a version of the Linux operating system, and is maintaining a connection with the Goddard Space Flight Center which will to try to contact the onboard PC more than 140 times over the duration of the shuttle mission STS-107.

Again via the BBC, President Bush looks set to back NASA’s project to use nuclear propulsion systems in spacecraft. This has the potential to make the exploration of space by either crewed or robotic craft a lot more viable, but is something likely to meet with opposition from anti-nuclear campaigners. Needless to say the news will please those in favour of a human exploration program.

There’s been wide reporting of the discovery of a fossil of a four-winged dinosaur in China. Here’s the New Scientist report and the BBC report.

Researchers at Imperial College London looking into memory and neurofeedback make claims that it might be possible for people to be trained in better recall. Neurofeedback techniques involve showing people their brainwaves on a screen and teaching them how to exert some control over them. (Guess what? via the BBC.)