It’s been a spacey couple of weeks here at Zoonomian. What with the Royal Society’s meeting on astrobiology and the search for extra-terrestrial life (SETI), rapping ET-style, and a return to the Buck Rogers era. And we’re not finished yet.
You might remember one of the speakers at the Royal Society event was physicist Paul Davies, who also has a new book coming out, The Eerie Silence: Are we alone in the Universe?.
I’ll be writing a full review of Eerie Silence in due course, but meantime you might want to take part in what looks like a fun competition, launched today by publishers Penguin UK together with National Science and Engineering Week.
They’re asking the question:
Is there anybody out there? What would you say if you could send a message into space?
Would you say hello, ask the meaning of life, share an insight or just complain about the weather?
As the organisers say, this is a rare opportunity to beam up to 5000 messages into space to celebrate the 50th anniversary of SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, which is the subject of Davies’s book.
Paul Davies
So get your thinking cap on, make your message funny, thoughtful or wise and do something extraordinary.
The best 50 messages, as chosen by a judging committee, will be posted at the Penguin website and also here on Zoonomian on 12 March, the first day of National Science and Engineering Week 2010 and in the national media. Winning entrants’ names and home location, only, may be credited at the foot of each message. In addition, the 50 winning entrants will each receive a copy of “The Eerie Silence: Are we Alone in the Universe?” by Paul Davies.
To send a message of no more than 40 words, simply go to www.penguin.co.uk/eeriesilence and enter your message.
Entries will be accepted between 8th – 28th February 2010.
Winners notified on 3 March and the 50 winning entries will go public on 12 March 2010. For full details and Terms and Conditions, see the website.
Since the mid 1980s, I've worked in university and industrial research, as a manager and editor in technology and environment for an international NGO, and held senior business development, strategy, and procurement posts in industry. I hold a PhD in chemical engineering from Birmingham University, an MBA from Warwick University Business School, and an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College. In 2008, I left industry to focus full-time on my passion for science and technology, and to share that enthusiasm with others as a freelance science communicator. I live in London with my American wife Erin.
