SETI in 2021

In this second installment of SETI in 20xx, we very briefly and subjectively review developments in SETI in 2021. Our primary focus is 93 papers and books published or made public in 2021, which we sort into six broad categories: results from actual searches, new search methods and instrumentation, target and frequency selection, the development of technosignatures, theory of ETIs, and social aspects of SETI.Comment: 10 pages, 0 figures, submitted to Acta Astronautica, comments welcom

Improving Undergraduate Astronomy Students' Skills with Research Literature via Accessible Summaries: A Case Study with Astrobites-based Lesson Plans

Undergraduate physics and astronomy students are expected to engage with scientific literature as they begin their research careers, but reading comprehension skills are rarely explicitly taught in major courses. We seek to determine the efficacy of lesson plans designed to improve undergraduate astronomy (or related) majors' perceived ability to engage with research literature by using accessible summaries of current research written by experts in the field. During the 2022-2023 academic year, twelve faculty members incorporated lesson plans using accessible summaries from Astrobites into their undergraduate astronomy major courses, surveyed their students before and after the activities, and participated in follow-up interviews with our research team. Quantitative and qualitative survey data clearly show that students' perceptions of their abilities with jargon, identifying main takeaways of a paper, conceptual understanding of physics and astronomy, and communicating scientific results all improved with use of the tested lesson plans. Additionally, students show evidence of increased confidence of their abilities within astronomy after exposure to these lessons, and instructors valued a ready-to-use resource to incorporate reading comprehension in their pedagogy. This case study with Astrobites-based lesson plans suggests that incorporating current research in the undergraduate classroom through accessible literature summaries may increase students' confidence and ability to engage with research literature, as well as their preparation for participation in research and applied careers.Comment: Submitted to PRPE

palumbom/seti-fortuitous-obs: v0.1.0

Initial release containing the code used to search for GBT observations that fortuitously fall near the antipodes of stars within 100pc. Also included is a Jupyter notebook with supplemental figures. Full Changelog: https://github.com/palumbom/seti-fortuitous-obs/commits/v0.1.

Technosignatures: Frameworks for Their Assessment

In view of the promising advancements in technosignature science, the question of what constitutes a robust technosignature is rendered crucial. In this paper, we first delineate a Bayesian framework for ascertaining the reliability of potential technosignatures by availing ourselves of recent cognate research in biosignatures. We demonstrate that ideal technosignatures must not only have low risk of stemming from false positives but also evince sufficiently high prior probability of existence. Given the inherent difficulties with estimating the latter, we highlight a few alternative metrics drawn from diagnostic testing such as the Youden index that bypass the requirement of explicitly calculating the prior. We apply the models (Bayesian or otherwise) to a select few technosignature candidates and show that artificial electromagnetic signals, chlorofluorocarbons, and artifacts perform well on this front. While these results may be along expected lines, we suggest that identifying and developing suitable approaches to further evaluate technosignature candidates is of considerable importance