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DAMNED BY FAINT PRAISE. “Perversely, such vaguely positive but non-specific language past in Decadal surveys has been deployed by NASA as a reason ​not​ to fund SETI.​“ https://lnkd.in/djnMhU6 View in LinkedIn

DEAF EARS. “Tarter et al. (2018) catalogs many past recommendations from National Academies reports, NASA strategy documents, and prior Decadal surveys that endorse NASA’s embrace of SETI or the search for technosignatures, including the 1998, 2003, and 2008 Astrobiology Roadmaps, and the 2015 Astrobiology Strategy document.” https://lnkd.in/djnMhU6 View in LinkedIn

EXPANDING BEYOND HOBBYISTS. “The resulting workshop report stated: “...getting good answers to the questions posed by the workshop is not a matter of asking the appropriate experts to synthesize information that already exists, it will require training and supporting scientists to do the work necessary to generate that information in the first place. ​—Technosignatures Workshop Participants (2018).” https://lnkd.in/djnMhU6 View in LinkedIn

CLOCK ENTRAINMENT. “Circadian clocks, which underlie the daily rhythms in virtually all organisms, are entrained by diurnal changes in light, temperature, nutrients, and even sound.” https://lnkd.in/dYTpyue View in LinkedIn

DIRTY LITTLE SECRET. “The small size of the trained workforce in the field is a major problem for NASA and its search for life in the universe.​ For instance, at the NASA Technosignatures Workshop, participants were charged with answering questions about the state of the art of the field, advances coming in the near- and medium-future to advance the field, and what role NASA could play in the field.” https://lnkd.in/djnMhU6 View in LinkedIn

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CONSERVED CLOCKS. “It is not surprising such clocks have been documented frequently in organisms ranging from photosensitive cyanobacteria to humans. The key genes involved in animal circadian clocks are highly conserved. For example, there is high homology among core insect and human circadian clock genes, and recent work on circadian clocks in the cnidarian, Nematostella vectensis, reveals a high similarity of the cnidarian clock to both insect and mammalian clocks, thus implying an early evolution of clocks within animals.” http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/1/131.full View in LinkedIn

SENSING TIME. ‘The other major rhythm is based on the seasonal calendar known as photoperiodism. In this case, the organism responds either to annual changes in day length, or directly to the length of day/night, and uses this information to determine the timing of key events such as migration or the entry into a dormant state. Both circadian and photoperiodic events rely on an ability to precisely measure time.” http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/1/131.full View in LinkedIn

GREATER RHYTHMS. “The daily rotation of the earth on its axis and the annual revolution of the earth around the sun generate patterns that have profound impacts on daily and seasonal activity patterns of organisms. Feeding, mating, sleeping, and indeed most behavioral and physiological activities show a distinct rhythm with a peak of activity occurring at a certain time of the daily light:dark cycle.” https://lnkd.in/dG_GuJ2 View in LinkedIn