Switching off TV for ET
Aliens tuning in for the last season of Lost might be in for a real nasty surprise.
As you might know, the US is ditching analog television broadcasting in favour of digital, and the UK and the rest of the world aren't far behind.
Weird Science Hero and all-round good guy Seth Shostack, from the SETI Institute, has taken this switch-over to a very logical conclusion - the fact aliens tuning into the latest antics of Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the gang are going to be mighty peeved.
For the past 60 years Earth has been inadvertently pumping out high-powered broadcasts to anyone who might be listening.
We've not been quiet, oh no. Like a crying toddler any civilization living nearby couldn't have failed to notice our screaming.
Aliens within 60 light years of us might sit down every night to watch Coronation Street, Eastenders or, God forbid, Hollyoaks.
But the signal will be cut off with the introduction of digital.
The green-skinned critters will pop out for a cup of tea during an ad break and will be met with static on their return.
So far the Earth has been doing all the shouting, but by 2016 we could also be listening for the faint signal of an extraterrestrial Neighbours.
The Square Kilometre Array is a radio telescope planned to be built in weither South Africa or Australia.
It will be so sensitive we'll be able to pick up Globnars Say The Funniest Things.
So a note for future generations, if the Earth is threatened by angry aliens in tooled-up spacecraft they might simply want to know what the smoke monster was and where is that damned island!
Weird Science Factoid: Children laugh 400 times a day, adults just 15. Probably laughing at all the miserable adults.
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Daniel Smith - a long time ago, in a galaxy far away just north of Watford, Daniel fancied himself as a scientist but turned out to be the worst scientist since that bloke who mapped out all those canals on Mars that turned out to be scratches on his telescope's lens. Luckily, he is now not working on the Large Hadron Collider inadvertently creating a black hole that would swallow the world but is safely behind a desk writing this blog, bringing you the fantastical underbelly of nature... weird science.
