Turning the Phoenix Mission's confirmation of water ice on Mars into a thought experiment on the search for little green men (or at least some super microbes), PM's resident geek offers an instant analysis on two diverging worlds—scientific research for alien life (losing funding) and open-source fanaticism for alien intelligence (losing credibility).

The Vatican's chief astronomer says there is no conflict between believing in God and in the possibility of "extraterrestrial brothers" perhaps more evolved than humans. Asked if he was referring to beings similar to humans or even more evolved than humans, he said: "Certainly, in a universe this big you can't exclude this hypothesis".