and started educating larger and larger segments of their population. and by the end of the 20th century, they were beating us at our own game both in high school graduation rates and in college completion rates. .. and for the last decade are so the more pronounced change has been a runoff in income for the

top 1 percent that really began -- well, it goes back to 1979, but it really took off in the 1990's. what is driving that? i want to spend a lot of time talking about this, not because it is important, it is using important, but because it's pretty simple and straightforward. use of the groups that have the greatest representation at the very top, and here we have the top -- zero. 41%. the greatest representation is non-financial. so the take off in top corporate bay, which is really out of control after 1979. that's debt -- that is the said bill clinton contributed to it inadvertently when he imposed a limit, a ceiling of $1 million

deductible ceo pay. that seemed a sensible reform, but two things happened as a result. an expert on corporate compensation. the first thing was everyone got a raise to a million dollars. the second thing that happened was corporations started shoveling money to ceos in the form of stock options. and these were off the books remarkably because the corporations took the position that they had no idea how much the stock options are worth. so they could not put them on the books. as a result there were no brakes at all and giving them out. in addition, the stock options were given away where they did not necessarily reflect an individual company's performance. they really represented the overall stock market. so that is the ceo pay. the other piece is the

evangelization of the economy. and here you find that the number of people in the top 01 percent went up 11% to about 18 percent today. so they have increased their presence among the richest of the rich. and that is to the finalization of the economy, deregulation of wall street, and a number of trends that reflect finance really being out of control as we seem to learn about every day in the headlines most recently with the loss from jpmorgan -- is a 2 billion or 5 billion? [laughter] and so we see people in finance reaping huge rewards by taking risks. the downside risk is generally held by the public at large because these banks are too big

to fail. so what is the result? the result is that people are marching in the streets. the occupy wall street movie as put the issue on the agenda, and we are talking about it here relief for the first time since the trend began in 1979. a lot of discussion about it, what it means. so i did not leave a lot of time for questions, but if anybody has any questions, please come forward. if you could come up to the mike. >> hi. is this on? >> of repeat your question. >> i am in finance. i am completely on your side, but i am troubled by the mixing of our income and capital gain. it seems to distort conclusions

in several ways, as you look through your chart. have you done a study separating them? >> you find the trends exist. i include capital gains on the theory that income is income. one thing is that the trend is more volatile out. it means that when you include capital gains that the corrupt, the 1 percent income share was more dramatic than if you don't include income gains. but it also shows that in good time the increase for the 1 percent is going to be more dramatic. my feeling is income is income, so you have to count all of it. this particular chart does not include capital gains because i was comparing these numbers to other numbers that did not include capital gains for consistency's sake, but usually i did include capital gains. yes.

>> getting people involved. telling them about the causes, telling them about the negative implications like the work of richard wilkinson or is it, you know, getting political action to change in the quality? >> the next step. and, you know, that is not my department. i don't know. i'm not an activist. i don't have a great understanding of how activist movements work. i do in my books suggest some solutions that we need to start discussing. most of them are politically impossible at the moment, but i think we need to put some solutions on the table. including raising, even though the income tax changes did not cause the problem. we could ameliorate the problem and make some progress toward reducing the deficit by raising the top marginal rates. income above 1,000,010,000,000. that is over and above restoring the marginal rates.

as will happen automatically if the congress and white house cannot reach agreement. i also think that we need to impose government controls on college tuition. and i get that i thought was insanely radicalize included in my book and to my deep disappointment, a disappointment of my vanity anyway, president obama suggested something very much like it in the state of the union address. i mostly pleased that he did it because i think it's something we need to start discussing. what was interesting was that there was no blow back from republicans about it. i think because two reasons. republicans have no great love for colleges and universities these days. to mr. did during the primaries. calling president obama is not far wants americans to go to college. the other reason, i think, is that even republicans, they have kids to. they are bowled over i'm sure themselves by the cost of

tuition and fees. so those are just a couple of solutions. >> i have a question. i think about 25%, or one-quarter of americans hold a bachelor's. do you know how that compares with countries in the european union and in asia? >> i know that the college -- i don't have the precise number, but the college completion rate in the u.s. which used to lead the world is now lagging a number of western european countries. arnie duncan has done a lot of work on the education department. if you go to their website you will be able to find the statistics right away, but that is, i think, a serious problem. >> why has the proportion here gone down so sharply? >> why have we seen such a dramatic drop in unionized labor? i think the reason it has been

so dramatic in the united states is that the government -- obviously there are global reasons to cause decline, the rise of competition, global competition as a fourth. but i think the reason it is so much worse in the united states is that our government is so much more hostile to organized labor than western european government. and it really began back during labor heyday, 1947 with the passage of the taft hartley law which made it very, very difficult to organize. and i think its effects were not seen for awhile because the labor movement was on the rise among but i think it acted as a slow acting poison on the labour movement. and in the 1980's starting with ronald reagan, actually, before reagan in the last years of the carter administration we started seeing government for, first congress and then the white house under ronald reagan turning against the labor movement. the failure of the major labor bill in 78.

we saw of ronald reagan, the union, that obviously was a public union, not a private union. they had a huge impact on the private -- private labor movement as well. president reagan appointed somebody head of the nlrb who was openly hostile to labor. the government just became much more sympathetic to unions -- union busting, and that think that had a huge impact. any other questions to back. ♪ well, thank you so much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> that was can think miller live from the book festival. shortly we will hear from mark kaufman. his book, first contact thomas

more's the science of master biology which studies extra terrestrial life. >> thank you and enjoy the rest. >> here is a look at some books that are being published this week. four-star general and former secretary of state presents his theories. it worked for me in life and. in predator nation corporate criminals, political corruption, and the hijacking of america, dr. gentry filmmaker charles ferguson argues that public officials have allowed the financial crimes to be committed without consequence. political commentators and journalists contends that hyper individualism is the cause for political dissatisfaction in our divided political parties. the battle for the american idea in an age of discontent. in the first book in a new

series about the fundamentals of american government eleanor clift, contributing editor for newsweek magazine and matthews spieler, former social policy analyst for congressional quarterly explains the process of how the united states to elect the president in selecting the presidents. in the fate of the species, why the human race may cause its extinction and how we can stop it, fred cattell, executive editor, scientific american argues that the earth is going through the mass extinction event with hundreds of species dying off on a daily basis. he offers technological solutions to stop the continuous extinctions. look for these titles in bookstores this coming week, and watch for the authors in the near future on book tv and on the booktv.org.

[silence] >> welcome to the book festival. co-owner of politics and prose bookstore. our store is delighted to be the main bookseller. as many of you may be aware, we are located in washington. -- we are known for the author talks. part of a larger community. so we were very eager to help organize this festival.

they approached us months ago to ask for assistance for arranging this very worthwhile event. the enthusiastic turnout here today underscores the global growing diversity. it also demonstrates just how much support exists in this city and in montgomery county for the cultural arts. we at politics and prose are very happy to be a part of that. a few quick administrative notes . speaking into this one to? that's good? all right. a few quick administrative notes. for the consideration of everyone here, please silence any devices that make any kind of noise. also, in order to keep improving this event we need your feedback, so please take a moment after the event to fill out a brief survey, copies of

which are available here in the tent or at the information booth or online at the festival's website. your thoughts are important to us. our featured author for this hour, mark kaufman, plans to speak for about 20 or 30 minutes and then will take some questions. if you would like to ask something please use the microphone right here in the center so that everyone in the tent and everyone who is watching can hear you. immediately after this presentation mike will be happy to sign copies of his book over in the author sighting area, and if you don't already have a copy of first contact you can purchase one or more in the politics and prose tends. mark is a former colleague of mine at the "washington post" where he wrote about science and was widely respected for his work and for his collegial manner. these days mark is working with national geographic on an e-book

about nasa's curiosity mission to mars. in his book, first contact, mark takes on a big subject, the hunt for life beyond earth. he does so in a very lively and engaging way. he somehow manages to treat the subject in a compact 200 pages, covering an impressive amount of ground or i should say space. here is how mark against. it is just as in the universe, what a terrible waste of space. but it is not. for the end of this century and perhaps much sooner than that scientists will determine that life exists elsewhere in the universe. this book is about how they're going to get there. now, how can you not be hooked after such a bold and intriguing opening assertion? the search for life beyond earth , pastor of biology. mart provides a first-person

account traveling not just to observatories in chile and australia where scientists are searching the planet and the stars, but to remote places on earth, places like the mines of south africa and california's alkaline like, why gutser look places on earth if your focus is like an out is based? because if you can find living creatures in environments consider hostile to life, microbes that scientists call extreme the files, you might expand your ideas about what is necessary for life to exist in other solar systems. in fact, mark includes a chapter titled what makes something alive, which makes clear there is no agreement on the answer to that question. mike brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at caltech said in a review of marc's book that appeared in the "washington post" a range of this new field of astra biology is exhilarating . even though scientists are still learning how to sort out the

hard science from the understandably anxious enthusiasm, getting to ride along with kauffman is an expansive joy. indeed, marks on enthusiasm for his subject is infectious. after reading his book, it is easy to end up believing, as he does, that it is only a matter of time before evidence of extraterrestrial life is found. let's see what you think after listening to him here this afternoon. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming mark kaufman. [applause] >> thank you. now, let me just make sure we get this right. and okay. very good. hello, everybody. it is a delight to be here. i have been talking about this subject for some time now after

the book came out, and i find it just wonderful to communicate with people about it. it is unlike a lot of other subjects. it is something that really touches people in that kind of large, spiritual way potentially there is a certain wonder and all associated with it. in any case, i hope so, and that is what i will try to communicate today. talking about life as we don't know it. and just a little bit into context, when you think about it , there has always been to five humans have always wondered about and thought about life beyond earth. they put it in said -- into stories about god and heavens and angels and all kinds of things. virtually every culture has this, and would you think about it, is this something that people just want to be the case, or is it something that we kind of into it that it is virtually impossible that there would be

-- that there would not be life elsewhere in the universe. and that's what i'm looking at. in terms of this particular, this subject, it is not something that is just academic. it is -- it is a real subject of debate, and sometimes more than that for a long time. this is a statute of giordano bruno who was a dominican monk back in rome in the 16th century. and he gradually became something of a free thinker. one of the things that he fought freely about was life beyond earth. it was one of the reasons why the spanish inquisition arrested him and put him to death at this particular square in rome. so, if the subject that went * science can be extremely

powerful. and, in the absence of science still today when you think about it, extraterrestrials, partly hollywood. i mean, you know, most many blockbusters. why is that? well, because we wanted to be overly into it that there is. now what we have is something new and different. this is real science. this is -- this is some of the best and brightest in the world, putting their attention to this question of life beyond earth. they're doing it in a broad, broad set of waste. this wonderful rover robot, curiosity, on its way to mars right now, and up till you more about it later. hopefully it will give us a lot more affirmation. and this is something that one of the heads of nasa told me recently, nasa has entered the age of astra biology.

esther biology being the search for life beyond earth. you don't hear too much about it in terms of them talking about it because, you know, congress would not necessarily be terribly happy with the idea of doing that. it is something that i certainly have found and the people in nasa understand is a terrific organizing drive, and it is something that we'd human steeply, deeply want answers about. just a little bit of background. the field of master biology really took off in the mid-90s when a mars meteorite was identified by some nasa scientists as being potentially, having life in it, five or six bios signatures. president clinton got involved. nasa had a big press conference. suffice it to say that it really got astor biology up and going because many scientists ultimately concluded that the buyer messages could have been -- could have come from

different sources, something other than biology. so it started something really big, but it is not necessarily the answer. but, look at this. when you think about it, this is a chart of what aster biology is. it is the most interdisciplinary of all fields. it goes from microbiology to all the way to cosmology and everything in between, geology and whatever. and you have now thousands of people around the world who, again, top scientists who are using this as an organizing been and i have been to a couple of astra biology conferences around the world, mostly in the u.s., and frequently they have five, six, 7,000 people. it is real. and here is after spending two and a half, three years talking to scientists about it, this

kind of logic that i came up with. and, again, this was more a reflection of what they told me. i try to put it into other forms . why is it extremely likely that there is life beyond earth? first, life is far, far more tenacious than we ever imagined it to be. twenty years ago the expectation was that light existed in a very narrow band in terms of temperature, radiation, up salinity at times. utterly out the window. fifteen years ago we had never found an actual plan. there had been a believe that there were planets beyond our solar system, but they had never been identified. now there are at least 3,000 that had been identified, and the expectation is that there are billions and billions of additional planets out there. habitable planets, was like ours that are just the right distance from the sun in order to be able to have sufficient water, again,

billions of them out there. the molecules and compounds needed to make life, complex hydrocarbons and oxygen and water, it's all out there. it is all about been nebula, in space, and meteorites, and it is being deposited on plants throughout the universe. and then there is the question, of course, if life started once why wouldn't it again. this is where the march issue come in. the mars rover, if it started another time in our solar system, if we can find some sort of evidence that there once was life on mars that is different than earth life or that there is still then it could not be just coincidence that and one basically run-of-the-mill solar system that there would be two different forms of life that originated. the expectation then is that life is a commonplace throughout the universe.

to walk through some of it to life in a stream places, these are called extreme the files. exploded the last 15 years. started off with these black smokers to my hydrothermal vents. they send up water that somehow three, 400 degrees. everyone assumed there would be no life around the periphery. also, in antarctica research had begun. they did again thomas like this. they bring back their checks of vice. they see what's there. almost always, microbial life living in the ice. this is really kind of revolutionizing. if you may have seen some stories, a number of months ago,

antarctic, it is a side, perhaps the most inhospitable place on the earth. regularly goes down to to-100 degrees. drilling into the ground, and to the ice, they were doing it because the u.s. it actually gotten to dig, and said they wanted to have something to dig into. they went to. and it as always 15 years ago that it was determined that there was a huge lake, two and a half year -- two and a half miles below. like the size of lake ontario. a lot more water that lake ontario. the most pristine spot on earth. there were some others somewhat

like it in antarctica, but nothing of this size and scope. so they started drilling more and more. and it was quite controversial because of the way the drills. using antifreeze and kerosene. the fear was that they would hit the water and then think that things would happen, but they did make it through just a couple of months ago. it was -- in the end, an international phenomenon was recorded around the world. they did it on the last that they could before they had to land. the antarctic winter was so large airplanes cannot come in and out. they have a window of two and a half months. and so they were on their last day when they broke through. a guy, -- ap note just a couple of months ago, one of the people that was helping, worked a lot

with the russians. some of the water started spreading out. a lot like a marsh. the implication that there was living material down vests which would be very never ever imagined. ice, and we know it has water. more than there is on earth. under, why wouldn't it be on your upper? extreme files also, that does it in july, once the hottest place

on earth. it drains there once every ten years. microbial life under the rock. some people have gone down a couple of meters. the colonies of microbes. it got kind of controversial as to whether or not they were targets. they were saying it can replace the phosphorus. this would be an entirely different form of life. it does not sound like it would be a big deal, but for scientists this would be enormous. remains unclear whether or not it can be confirmed. this is deep under the pacific in a the north pacific.

the microbes reproduced hundreds or thousands years. microbial life can be very different. all right. why am i talking so much about microbes? what is the big deal? well, microbes actually is what most of life is about on earth. every billion years, microbes, or innocence, even now most of the life is that. so the understanding is that if you have a microbe they can evolve just like they did. i will go the route to double go through this somewhat quickly.

a classic esther biologists had a an idea that no one else had. if you go deep down underground that in the ocean but underground you will find life also. no one would support him on his own dime. he went to south africa with the have the deepest mines in the world. he started looking, the water samples for life. he found this bacteria. it lives out, associated from the surface of the world. about 20, 30 million years. the radioactive decay. being a foreign correspondent at heart, i, of course, when there. went down to one 1/4 miles. i almost fainted. it was very hot.

very wet. it was kind of creepy. nothing in the air. whatever. but i was with this gentleman from belgium. he was looking for something different. looking for microbes. this guy was saying, well, these microbes, the civil worms, tiny worms. some bacteria there. in comparison the microbes are incredibly complicated. they do a lot of things that microbes cannot do. and so he went out looking for them. and here's what he found. it is -- and it was kind of proof positive that not only would you find microbes in that kind of depth, but you could find complex, evolve life. again, the implication being, mars today is cold and dry. there is no reason to believe that there is life on the

surface. but could it have -- could the lights have gone down to the subsurface? as it turns out, nasa is now of the belief, and understanding the back at the beginning of time mies was actually a far more habitable place that are. it was wet. it was much warmer, has an atmosphere. life certainly could have these of there, could have begun. we now have these images of mark, water flowed. i love this. this is something that came out recently. this is not winter. does not look like any big deal. it looks like there is water that is melting and slowing down, and is not just water, but thousands of what appeared to be streams going down. and this right at the surface, grammy water. it raises the issue, life on the surface of mars.

now, curiosity, the american taxpayers are paying a lot of money. i personally think it is a good deal. over two and a half billion dollars, the first aster biology mission billing says miking in the 70's. it is an extraordinarily big deal. the -- sorry. these are the other rivers that have gone to mars. curiosity is the one on the left. you can see, it is much bigger. crazy american way of doing things, sending a suburban to mars, but in fact to there doing it because they're sending an astro chemistry lab up there. the things that have never been done before. cameras up there. and the nuclear generated power.

this is where it's going to land the crater, 3,204,000,000 miles away. and amazingly, assuming that it worked, the landing area, 10 kilometers button kilometers. it is by far the smallest of landing that never been tried. it is the most complicated approach ever. there really wanted to get into this crater. a mountain in the middle about 2 miles high. disposes' mars geology. osteosis and scientists. what is curious the? parcel. tract where curiosity is.

it is the biggest deal for nasa. and, okay, here, it is going to be coming into mars at 13,000 miles-per-hour. six minutes to go down to zero without crashing. it has a computerized guided it defense system which will allow it to go up and take a lot of the heat that it has the parish is never been used before. the parishes close it down what is called the back shield, blasts off with some pyrope, rocket, which then sends this weird thing down to about 60 feet above the surface. it covers like a helicopter. then slowly, slowly, to something called the sky crane it drops curiosity down.

curious if his gone through this incredible help. 3500 degrees. and you have to be protected from that. it has to be protected from the potential of crashing and whatever else. and this is the only way that nasa could figure out to do it. it is far more complicated than any that they have done before. i will move on. okay. in the past what nasa has usually done is called follow the water. where water is is where you're going to find potential life. we now know that their is a lot of water on mars. has been. now they're going to follow the chemical building block. and is what they have to send such a complicated mission up there. not looking for something as visible as water, they're looking for carbon, stuff like that.

it has a laser. curiosity. it has the hammer that goes up and knocked into the rock. it creates gases which are then analyzed. it potentially can tell us if there are the building blocks for life and potentially if there was life at some point on mars. i had the good fortune just recently of going out to death valley. the kinds of places where nasa folks tend to train for these things. the gentleman in this picture, science lead of the whole mission. and he was explain to us about theology and how they will be looking, but what he is also showing on the bottom here, that is called the stromatolite, the oldest fossilized form on earth. it is an album that that's formed, at one point was one of around the ocean.

and it may actually still exist in living form. if we see some signature where going to stop. a very good luck. they don't think it will find it, but just in case. another significant issue, another significant thing that they will be looking for is methane. the gas that on our floods the comes from cows and things like that on that percent of it is biologically formed. nasa scientist who a spent a lot of time with, 18 years researching methane on mars. concluded a year-and-a-half ago or so that the methane was being released at a specific time in specific places. the implication, on earth methane is largely formed their biology. there is at least the chance

that the same is going on and mars. this would be live below with the remnants of live below that created methane here. and it comes up. just to take you along with me for a sack on my travels, i went around the world several times during the book. when i went down to check to the observatory where he was doing his work, this is where we landed over we drove to. through the desert, and we came to this place out in the metal. was not a soul in sight. i kind of felt like a neutron bomb had gone off for something. you could see a little town that looks an awful lot like a or you put sell alongside the road. went down to the door, it still darkness.

bill. they created general of. and then the does it. that is where the astronomers lift. and in did their work. i thought it was fascinating. it's just so cool, but also because it is kind of -- will have to be on mars someday or other kinds of sites where human beings will go, go beneath the surface. and this is the telescope that they actually used to find things. and at the point that i hit on before, fairly quickly, all of the makings for life are out there. they are out there in space. complex hydrocarbons, this is no longer any doubt. it's out there. we also know that all of this material falls down on us all the time. 20,000 tons tons of cosmic dust lens on it every year.

back in the time of the late heavy bombardments, a thousand times more. all those building blocks of life, they are delivered here. the mortising media right, the most famous me direct for esther biology. you can go down, the national history on the wall, samples of it are there. they have found it, i think, 80 different kinds of amino acids, again, not lipids, but the building blocks of protein. and they are in a particular form that is conducive to producing life. so the question becomes, how did life start on earth, which is also part of master biology. the answer may well be, it came from up there, the building blocks in from up there. even a theory that says, says mars used to be a lot more

habitable and the earth suddenly got life after a. where it clearly was inevitable, was of rock, and the right kicked up from mars and then we know that things can last for long, long time. remain in a hibernating state and then be delivered to the earth. and then become life which would, of course, make us all marshes. which explains a lot. too complicated right now. even for me. and just finally here, the last section, at the plants really changed everything in terms of esther biology. and turn -- until 15 years ago there was the expectation that there were a lot of other planets out there, but there were no signs yet to prove it. and then using a variety of different techniques, they have concluded that there are more plants that stars.

this is in our milky way. and since there are somewhere between 200,000,000,400,000,000,000 stars, that's a lot of plants just and our milky way, and their resilience and other bulky waste. they -- the first ones, the first planets were found using an instrument that to detect a wobble in the stars. now most of it is being done to the tesla, your tax money at work. they found more than 2300 plants already. they just get additional funding to go on for another two years. they -- were it says are son, kessler is a round there. it looks at a particular place in the sky. it looks only is that. 100,000 stars, and what it looks for is slight diminishing of light coming from the stars. the only thing that could do that would be if a plan it is going in front of it.

and so that is what kessler is doing, and it is phenomenally successful, and it is finding one planet that is an hebbel's those close enough to their stars to be warm enough now, but not so close that they will burn up. again, many many billions of millions of habitable planets. also, they are finding that initially they found really big planets. now they're finding smaller and smaller ones. most of them are small and kind of recess like to read their finding was that our terrestrial that have rocks in the. all of them are exciting because these are the makings of what could be a platform for life. and they're finding was that our this then is why i come to the conclusion that the likelihood of life is so great. the pallet is out there.

we know that there are billions and billions of planets. there are habitable zones that life is incredibly tenacious and that the makings of life are out there in the interstellar medium and that just like it fell on earth it is falling and other planets. i think that in a way the artist kind of is on this side that argues against it because the logic is so strong in favor of it. and so if you folks have questions i would be happy to answer them. i would talk about a study. two studies. okay. all right. what kind of life? is et going to be out there?

i don't think so. these are calls not peace. far more likely that you will find some of these. the kind of algal map like this to light. if you can find out. it is put up by nasa. the plants in entirely different colors. plants that are entirely black. photosynthesis would just kind of a whole different physics to it. and, okay, we're talking about microbial life. maybe plant life or, you know, he matured. here is a problem. but everyone really, really wants to know is intelligent life. microbes are cool and can evolve into intelligent life, but we want to know, are their dogs, elephants, is there a cousin of

there. here's the problem. the closest place that could potentially have a humble plan, of the century, over four light years away if, that means that it takes a long, long time. despite what you see on star trek, there is no worse feed. many generations would live and die. in the absence of a way to get to excess planets which we now know are common, the whole concept takes on a new meeting. very kind of skeptical. the idea is this search for extraterrestrial intelligence, listening for radio signals that would be different than what is made by nature. it would have to be made by another civilization. the originator of this back in

the late fifties. west virginia this is quantifying how likely it is that you will find evolves civilizations elsewhere. it still is really, really big. but it is getting less and less make all the time. and trade tells me, he states that within 25 years this equation will be starting enough to tell us something really important. and what he hopes that importance is is that, yes, there is definitely intelligent life. in some of my travels i was up in hat creek in northern california. a really beautiful place. one of the founders of microsoft was officially impressed by the study that he bankrolled the array of 42 different radio telescopes. he wanted to make it up to 350

radio telescopes that will be designed to listen all the time for potential signals coming from elsewhere. they run into some financial troubles which i will talk about in just a second, but if you are ever in northern california and want to see something really, really amazing go to hat creek. it's open to the public. you can walk there. a beautiful area, and it is really worth it. as i was doing the research, i also wanted to see how other cultures tell with this kind of stuff. he is a -- an observatory. southern japan. he was doing his own study observation and ended up doing it with 23 different groups in japan. later i was able to put him in touch with study america. they did a whole international study. it was really quite cool. an interesting sideline, which i

would love to get into if anyone is interested, at the end of this observation, my friends, we have been hanging out for quite a few days, you know, i could see he was getting drained, on the phone. his face was just getting longer and longer. listening. and i said, what's going on? key said, you know, whenever we have an observation this is what happens. people call and say, don't let them know we're here. it's going to end up badly for us. and as it turns out, of course, they're just listening, the public understanding was that we were sending of signals, he was sending up signals come aliens would find it and they would come and i don't know, he does. it is not just citizens in japan the united states. stephen hawking very famously said the same thing recently. don't do it. just this kind of a final thing, i was speaking just yesterday

with the only it's terrific scientist and one of the originators of the study, but played by jodie foster in the movie contact. famous on a lot of levels. she was telling me about how when she started out in this field back in the 70's, the idea that there would be an extreme a file that could exist, the kinds of conditions that we know they can in terms of radiation, heat, everything, the fact that we know there are billions of planets, we know that all the makings for life are out there. she said, we have no idea. we were just trying to listen, you know. she said it is very disappointing that after 25 years or so, 30 years, we still haven't heard anything. they really feel that they just now are starting. she likened what they listen to is to a cup of water above the whole ocean. that is what the focus on. now they have the wherewithal to

do a lot more. but there will be some news about children a couple of days. not that they have about anything. they did not hear anything. but she is a remarkable person. and to me, just a real interesting model that kind of the desire to find life in space . it has motivated her whole life. she is a very good scientist, unlike the character in the movie context. in that sense she is kind of and every woman standing in for, i think, the desire that all of us have. here finally is a -- something that i think a lot of this will put into context, an image taken by voyager which was one of the early nasa missions. its goal was to of leave the solar system. it was -- wind up in the 70's or 80's. this was around 1990.

carl hayden convinced nasa to turn the spacecraft around so that it could take some pictures of various planets. it took a lot to -- it was very hard to do, but they did it. they took the picture, and that one pixel add to a half billion miles away, that one pixel is earth. and it kind of puts us into context, you know. i mean, we are so minuscule. we are so teeny, tiny. we live in what appears to be a universe or certainly in galaxy that is fine-tuned for life. what we have here is wonderful. there is really no reason whatsoever to think that we are not -- that we are alone. i think that their is a lot of other life out there, and we need is found it will, i believe, change our world dramatically. and i think for the better.

thank you all very much. i've really enjoyed talking to you. [applause] people have questions about any of that science, many of the big picture. yes? [inaudible question] >> i find of this just fascinating, and am so grateful to science writers for being a liaison between scientists that are doing the work and ignoramus like me. but it baffles me that more people don't get excited about it. to me is just phenomenally more interesting than anything, say, television or most of the stuff on the computer. our kids studying this kind of thing in school? you mentioned, a great -- >> well, i think you for your comments. i share your view.

i think that when people here about this they generally are very excited by it. i have spoken to scientific groups. i was asked by smithsonian to be a speaker on some cruises, celebrity cruises. it was a very different group population and they found it really interesting. it is something, you know, in the culture kind of science, you know, difficult, creepy, overwhelming. i don't find that. i have not been a science writer all my life. i have been a science writer for most of the last and years. i was a foreign correspondent and a lot of other stuff. i find this interesting because it tells us about reality not to my kind of social what happens on the daily news cycle. so i agree with you. i believe the book is being told them in schools, being used in some colleges and high schools. one of the reasons i wanted to write the book was i thought it was kind of science in the

context that people could really find interesting. >> everybody will use it. >> yes. yes. >> hi. i am a journalist and painfully aware of the economics of newspapers today. how supportive has the post bin of of this work that involves the long term work and a lot of traveling and what arguments have you made to convince them? >> well, i have a contract with the publisher. they paid for most of it. my wife and i pay for the rest. [laughter] the post has found kind of -- it resisted, but clearly the case that when i and other people writing about science do stories like this related to this, and i have written quite a few of these stories for the post as well, that basically the public response is very strong.

they can determine that by seeing how many hits you get. these always shoot right to the top. the post is supported in this sense that that track record shows that it really does work. at the same time, our science coverage is declining and that kind of thing. but, it does feel to me that science writing is in a place now where it is about to expand again. because i think the public is asking for it. you know, we just have much too much to not to. that doesn't relate to. serve -- sir. i think you very much. again, i am going to be spending the next couple of years learning about and writing about mars and mars curiosity mission. wi