Apr 19, 2017Expert Voices

How to look for alien life

Rebecca Zisser / Axios

Powerful telescopes and sophisticated analytical tools are allowing scientists to see further into the cosmos. The list of places that could conceivably be home to life is growing. Last week NASA announced Saturn's moon Enceladus could support life and today scientists reported the discovery of a super-Earth in the habitable zone of a small star near our solar system.

We seem to be entering a new phase of discovery in an age-old quest to determine if there is life beyond Earth. We have targets in that search, but what exactly are we are looking for?

We asked four researchers to weigh in on that head-scratcher of a question:

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Axios
Updated 1 hour ago - Politics & Policy

Coronavirus dashboard

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

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Ursula Perano
2 hours ago - Politics & Policy

Romney calls Stone commutation "historic corruption"

Sen. Mitt Romney. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Saturday tweeted a scathing response to President Trump's Friday night commutation of former associate Roger Stone's prison sentence, calling the move "[u]nprecedented, historic corruption."

Why it matters: Romney has emerged as the party's most prominent Trump critic. He sent shockwaves through Washington after announcing he would vote to convict Trump in the impeachment trial — becoming the only Senate Republican to break ranks and vote for the president's removal from office. Now he is the first major GOP lawmaker to condemn Trump's Friday night call regarding Stone.

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Sam Baker
5 hours ago - Health

We're losing the war on the coronavirus

Chart: Danielle Alberti/Axios

By any standard, no matter how you look at it, the U.S. is losing its war against the coronavirus.

Why it matters: The pandemic is not an abstraction, and it is not something that’s simmering in the background. It is an ongoing emergency ravaging nearly the entire country, with a loss of life equivalent to a Sept. 11 every three days — for four months and counting.

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