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New Debate over How to Contact Alien Life

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Researchers writing in Nature this week argue that radio signals are not the most efficient way of alerting an extraterrestrial intelligence to our existence -- and that anyone out there who is trying to send out a similar message is likely to have reached the same conclusion.

The scientists recommend sending, and searching for, an interstellar message in a bottle. NPR's David Kestenbaum reports.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

David Kestenbaum is a correspondent for NPR, covering science, energy issues and, most recently, the global economy for NPR's multimedia project Planet Money. David has been a science correspondent for NPR since 1999. He came to journalism the usual way — by getting a Ph.D. in physics first.