How Many Aliens Are in the Milky Way? Astronomers Turn to Statistics for Answers

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July 16, 2020

Dear Reader, The first pictures released from the Solar Orbiter satellite mission, led by the European Space Agency, are the closest ever taken of the Sun. The images show the corona teeming with thousands of miniature solar flares, which scientists have dubbed "campfires." Check out the photos in our story below. Also in space news, astronomers are using a sophisticated form of analysis called Bayesian statistics to estimate the odds of life beyond the solar system. Our lead story has the details. Also featured in today's roundup is a piece about the debate over the newly identified mutation involving the "spikes" studding the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen and its implications.

Sunya Bhutta, Senior Editor, Audience Engagement @sunyaaa

Space How Many Aliens Are in the Milky Way? Astronomers Turn to Statistics for Answers The tenets of Thomas Bayes, an 18th-century statistician and minister, underpin the latest estimates of the prevalence of extraterrestrial life By Anil Ananthaswamy

Public Health Second Coronavirus Strain May Be More Infectious--but Some Scientists Are Skeptical Researchers question whether a mutated viral strain that infected more cells in a lab dish is necessarily more transmissible among humans By Karen Kwon

Space This Photo of the Sun Is the Closest Ever Taken Close-up reveals a surface dancing with 'campfires' By Elizabeth Gibney,Nature magazine

Climate Chicago Learned Climate Lessons from Its Deadly 1995 Heat Wave The city was initially slow to change after the disaster killed 739 people, but is now a model for heat preparedness By Daniel Cusick,E&E News

Policy & Ethics Rushing Science in the Face of a Pandemic Is Understandable but Risky We need to be extremely careful about the inevitable pitfalls By Peter H. Gleick

Conservation Why Some Birds Are Likely To Hit Buildings Those that eat insects, migrate or usually live in the woods are most likely to fly into buildings that feature a lot of glass. By Jason G. Goldman | 02:27

Public Health Babies' Mysterious Resilience to Coronavirus Intrigues Scientists COVID-19 is often mild in infants. Learning why could help scientists better understand the disease—and point the way toward possible treatments By Shannon Hall

Biology Nobel Prize Winner Questions Peacock's Feathers Originally published in November 1954

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FROM THE ARCHIVE Alone in a Crowded Milky Way Even a galaxy teeming with star-hopping alien civilizations should still harbor isolated, unvisited worlds—and Earth might be among them By Caleb Scharf | January 2020

QUOTE OF THE DAY "We don't necessarily have to survey every star in our galaxy to figure out how likely it is for any given place to harbor life. One or two more data points, and suddenly, we know about, essentially, the universe in terms of its propensity for producing life or possibly intelligence. And that's rather powerful." Caleb Scharf, an astronomer and astrobiologist at Columbia

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