[NEWS] Should SETI Be Looking For Lasers Instead?

Mr.Guvernment · Aug 10, 2004

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+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Should SETI Be Looking For Lasers Instead? |
| from the mutant-sharks-come-free dept. |
| posted by timothy on Tuesday August 10, @05:11 (Space) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/10/0231245 |
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colonist writes "Frank Drake, creator of SETI's famous equation, says the [0]detection of extraterrestrial radio signals won't work, because Earth's own radio signal will only be around for 100 years. More and more of Earth's communications use cable and satellites, with no radio-frequency leakage to space. Instead, we should be looking for intentional signals in the form of high-powered lasers that could 'outshine the sun by a factor of 10,000'. Meanwhile, Paul Davies writes that we should be conducting [1]SETI in our DNA. In turns out that an alien message designed to last millenia should be 'inside a large number of self-replicating, self-repairing microscopic machines programmed to multiply and adapt to changing conditions', otherwise known as living cells. Are we the message?"

Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=04/08/10/0231245

Links:
0. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996255
1. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/09/1092022404578.html?oneclick=true

thoughts...

dicecca112 · Aug 11, 2004

dude that's some deep stuff. My thoughts are, we as humans seem so alien to this world, and the fact that a lot of stuff can't be completely attributed to us, like the paramids. Could they be perchance built by someone else or at least someone else helping else, and also the notion of miracles in olden times, can all be attributed to a lack of understanding of natural phenomenom or could they be ufos. In the back of my mind I have always thought that radio signals would seem primative to a highly advanced society, and they may just pass them off as background noise. So, maybe the idea of communication via other outlets some that maybe we can't even detect yet is viable. But the dna thing makes you thing, maybe they were what started that first cell repoducing in the primordial ooze.

Mr.Guvernment · Aug 11, 2004

^^ very true - i like to throw in the thought - what is "god" is actually an alien race that created us and put us here as a "test" or something

It is deep, and really you think if in 100 years we wont have radio signals, then we better work faster if we plan to find anything and if we as human - who do not seem to be overly evolved; possibly - then what ever may be out there could be far beyond "radio" signals - so why should SETI not turn some of it's power to searching for lasers and such and other digital signals...

[NEWS] Should SETI Be Looking For Lasers Instead?

Mr.Guvernment

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dicecca112

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Mr.Guvernment

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