Gamma rays are the sort of radiation you should avoid. Want proof? Just remember how the comic strip character "The Hulk" became big, green, and ugly.

My only hope is that every other alien civilization isn't doing exactly what we are doing because then everybody would be listening, nobody would be receiving, and we would collectively conclude that there is no other intelligent life in the universe.

It's my duty to enlighten people.

Some molecules - ammonia, carbon dioxide, water - show up everywhere in the universe, whether life is present or not. But others pop up especially in the presence of life itself. Among the biomarkers in Earth's atmosphere are ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons from aerosol sprays, vapor from mineral solvents, escaped coolants from refrigerators and air conditioners, and smog from the burning of fossil fuels. No other way to read that list: sure signs of the absence of intelligence.

When I shop for fruit & melons I like to hold a grape next to a cantaloupe & think of Earth next to Jupiter. Then I eat Earth.

When I was a kid, I thought that if everyone looked up the way I did then everyone would want to study the universe just like me - how could they not? This naiveté is what tells me that my interest was more a calling than a rational comparative assessment about what to be when I grew up.

I bet most of the crowd does not know that there are six moons in the solar system bigger than Pluto.