Could microbes communicate with alien species?

Experts argue that we should be searching for microbial life rather than human-like aliens

Sky at night
(Image credit: 2013 AFP)

Predrag Slijepcevic of Brunel University London and Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe of University of Buckingham on whether microbes such as bacteria may be rulers of cosmic life

Are we alone in the universe? The famous Seti (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) programme has been trying to answer this question since 1959. American astronomer Carl Sagan, and many others, believed that other human-like civilisations must exist, and that we could communicate with them. But sceptics are not convinced, arguing the lack of evidence for such civilisations suggests they are exceedingly rare.

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