Today on Something You Should Know, Autographs. Maybe you have one from someone famous. Is it worth anything? Then cybercrime. It's a constant threat to you. So who's behind it and how is it changing?

A few years ago, the most common information for cyber criminals to target was financial. They were looking for credit card details. Now, they are targeting credentials, usernames, passwords, it.

Also, when you write, you likely use black or blue ink. Maybe you should change that. And is there life outside our solar system?

That is exactly what we're trying to figure out. For the first time in history, we have a telescope that can catch enough light from small worlds that could be like ours. I think it's an amazing era of exploration we all live in.

All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's what something you should know was all about. I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called Ted Talks Daily. Now, you know about Ted Talks, right? Many of the guests on something you should know have done Ted Talks. Well, you see, Ted Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hugh. She goes beyond the headlines, so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily, and You get Ted Talks Daily wherever you get your podcast. Something You Should Know, fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life.

Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Caruthers. Hey, hi. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Do you have any autographs of famous people lying around? I do. Well, it's not lying around. It's in a safe deposit box. But I have the New York Yankees Old Timers Day program from 1962, signed by pretty much all of the Yankees that played that year. Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, Yokey Berra, All of them. How much is it worth? I don't know. But autographs of famous people can be worth a lot of money, or they can be worth nothing. As with other collectibles, it really depends on supply and demand. For example, autographs current TV stars or pop music stars aren't worth very much, at least not now, but you never know. When he was alive, James Dean's autograph wasn't worth much, but today it can be worth thousands of dollars. It also depends on what the autograph is on. If John Lennon signed his name on some handwritten song lyrics, it's going to be worth a lot more than John Lennon's signature on a Beatles album cover. George Washington's personal copy of the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Acts of the First Congress sold for $9.8 million in 2012.

Of the 26 copies of the original 48 signed copies of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation Corporation, one which was formerly owned by Bobby Kennedy, sold for $3.7 million in 2010. Albert Einstein documented his religious beliefs in a 1954 letter, and that letter sold for nearly $2.9 million in 2018. And Babe Ruth's New York Yankees contract sold for $2.3 million in 2017. And that is something you should know. From the time you got your first computer and hooked it up to the Internet, you've been told to be careful. Cyber criminals are out there looking to steal your information and take your money and do who knows what else. So where are we today? Who are these cyber criminals? And how is the fight against cybercrime going? And just how safe are we? Here to talk about this is Jessica Barker. She's one of the world's leading experts on cybercrime. She is often seen on television and in other media talking about this topic. She recently received an award from King Charles for her service to cyber security. Jessica is author of a book called Hacked: The Secrets Behind Cyberattacks. Hi, Jessica. Welcome to something you should know.

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.

What I often wonder about when I hear about cyberattacks or people being hacked online, I wonder, who is doing this? Who are the criminals and why are they doing it?

If you're affected by cybercrime, the likelihood is it's an organized criminal gang that is working in a very organized enterprise-type way. But then we also have the hacktivists, hacking for a purpose, for a mission. We have what's known as the script kiddies, the have-a-go hackers, who aren't necessarily trained, but they're watching some YouTube videos, they're downloading some publicly available tools, they're having a go, and sometimes they are shockingly successful.

So all of us have heard about how we need to have better security, good passwords, two-step verification, all these things. But I've also heard that if a hacker really wants to get your stuff, they put their mind to it, they'll get it, they'll figure it out. Where are we with all of that? Because I'm fairly diligent. I do what I think I'm supposed to do to stay safe online. I don't think I've been hacked. I don't think.

That's very good. Michael. I'm pleased to hear it. With cybersecurity, there are foundational behaviors we can all practice from making sure that we update our devices, being careful of the links we click on, being alert to phishing emails, using good passwords, and multifactor authentication. And if we practice those behaviors, it does reduce the likelihood. We can never have 100 % security. But sometimes cyber security can be over complicated. We can be giving a list of 20 things that we expect people to do and asking too much of people. And also, we can find that we're using technology. Technology is being put out there that is vulnerable or where vulnerabilities emerge that cyber criminals take advantage of, and sometimes you don't even know it.

What information am I most likely to be targeted for, and how would it be targeted?

This has changed in recent years. A few years ago, the most common information for cyber criminals to target was financial. They were looking for credit card details. Now, they are targeting our credentials, usernames, passwords, because they understand that if they can get into our accounts, that is the keys to the kingdom. They can then get access to so much of our information, including that financial information, But they can also use that access to compromise people we know, people who trust us. They can send phishing emails that look like they come from me or you if they access our accounts, which makes those emails become because they're impersonating us, much more trusted. So what they look to do is compromise one person and then use that as a way to compromise others in their circle.

So Help me understand, for example, I once or several times I've heard from people say on Facebook who say, My account's been hacked. If you get any messages from me or anything, ignore them. What would be the benefit of taking over somebody's Facebook account?

It's varied. Often, they are looking to spread spam or scams. For example, a case recently, a young woman had her Facebook account hacked. Then the criminals used that to contact everybody in her network, sending messages through Facebook to try to get them into a conversation, a back and forth. They didn't immediately ask for money, but they started to move down the path where they were asking people to click on a link and fill out information. So they were having a back and forth exchange, posing as the friend, and then saying, Oh, by the way, I I saw this great grant. I was able to get some money. You probably can as well click this link, and hopefully it will work for you, too.

That's exactly the one I got.

Okay. Yeah, it's prevalent at the minute. And they were using excuses why we couldn't have a phone call. Oh, I've actually just had surgery on my eardrum, so I can't have a phone call to verify that it's me. But if you click this link and put in your personal details, your financial details, maybe you'll get this sum money.

Right. That's exactly the one I got. But then I think, who's dumb enough to fall for that?

We're all human. So when somebody has been scammed or manipulated, Pretty much the first thing they will say to me is, I feel so stupid. And then they will often say, I'm educated, I'm savvy, I've got street smarts, and yet this happened to me. I help them We understand that we're all human. Being the victim of a scam doesn't make somebody stupid. It simply means these criminals caught us. The right fish at the wrong time can catch anyone. And if you're having a bad day, If you're tired, you're distracted, you're overworked, or you are just pushed into this state of mind where your judgment is clouded. And we all can be manipulated in different ways. For one person, it might be temptation patient that is... They're more vulnerable, too. For others, it might be flattery or authority or feeling scared, feeling worried, feeling hurried. Cyber criminals will try to tap into our emotions, push us into a fast way of thinking where our judgment is clouded and we act before we think.

I see that one of the things that you talk about is Caller ID spoofing. I don't really know, again, how that works to benefit anybody if they're successful. Could you explain that to me?

Absolutely. This is where Caller ID is manipulated, and there are online services, prebuilt spoofing services, which can be used to make a phone number appear for example, as a trusted brand, as a bank, ringing somebody and saying, Hey, we've seen some unusual activity on your account. I just need some information from you, and then taking them down the path of giving over financial information or login details to be able to take over the account and steal money or practice carry out identity fraud. There have been some really big cases involving spoofing in In November 2022, the biggest antifraud operation ran out of the UK was led by the Met police. It involved law enforcement from 10 countries, and it took down an illegal website site, which allowed criminals to use prebuilt spoofing services to impersonate trusted corporations. And there were 59,000 registered users of that illegal site. The site may need around $4 million in less than a year. And so it goes to show the money that is out there. When you can impersonate a person or a brand that is trusted, that's when cyber criminals are able to manipulate victims, sometimes into handing over huge amounts of money, sometimes into handing over personal information used for identity fraud, to take out mortgages, loans, buy things, sometimes for both.

I think It's safe to say that everybody hates passwords, and even more so that lately, they are required to be more complicated. They have to have an uppercase and a lowercase and a special symbol. How is How does it exactly that bad guys get around passwords?

Passwords can be compromised in a few different ways. One can simply be if we are using passwords to access a website and if the company, the website, doesn't store the passwords securely and they are breached. As I said earlier, criminals are looking for credentials, so they're going to try and steal that database and crack the passwords. Now, password cracking is where cyber criminals will run scripts. They're not doing this manually. They're using computer tools to essentially see if the passwords are weak enough that they can break them. This is why we say to use non-dictionary words and phrases to adding complexity with special characters, numbers, upper and lower case. And really, it's about making the passwords unique. Because if I use, for example, Star Wars, one, two, three, that will be in a password-cracking dictionary, and it means that cyber criminals will have access to that password. Once they have that, they're in your account. And if you're reusing that password in more than one place. If they compromise it for one account, the next thing they will look to do is try and use the same combination of email address and compromise password everywhere else to see if they can get into all of your other accounts, too.

And sometimes we overlook just how much information is in our online accounts. I know a lot of people who will have financial information in their emails, who will have a copy of their passport, for example, in their emails. And also, of course, we use emails to communicate with people in our lives. Again, cyber criminals, when they take over an account, will look to send out phishing emails posing as the account owner that they have compromised.

Wouldn't the answer to all of this be some biometric password? Then it isn't a password, it's you, and it's only you that can open these accounts.

This is partly why we have been moving to more biometric, and that's helpful. It can offer security, and it also can be more user friendly because we're all fed up of passwords. However, with biometrics, there's always a password underneath it. So it's not entirely passwordless. And if you think about, for example, your phone, say you use face ID on your phone. If your phone doesn't recognize your face, you maybe have sunglasses on, you're not looking your best, you're squinting into the sun, whatever it may be, and your face says, I don't recognize that. Your phone doesn't recognize the face ID, it will revert to asking you for your password. So we still have to have good passwords And one of the best things to do for peace of mind and for ease is to have a password manager, which is a vault that will hold all of your passwords. It will generate secure passwords for you. You just need one and make it a really good one password to act as your master password to be able to get into that vault.

And where do you get a vault?

There's lots of password managers out there. And if you Look for password manager reviews. Look for a password manager that is trusted, has been verified. There's big tech companies out there offering them. And people will worry about putting all of their eggs in one basket, trusting the password manager. And there have been some issues. There have been some security issues with password managers. So as I say, look at the reviews, do a quick search for a trusted password manager. But But at the same time, password managers are heavily scrutinized. So when there is a problem with them, the security community is going to be looking for that. And ultimately, using a password manager is going to give you better passwords and more security than if you're relying on your brain because it is too much cognitive load to try to think up and remember unique, complicated passwords for all of your accounts.

Right. Well, that's That's always been the problem is, what if you need to remember it and it's in a notebook in the third drawer of your desk and you're 2,000 miles away, now what do you do?

Yeah, and that's where password managers can be really handy. They don't just offer great security, they offer great usability, and they take that password cognitive load off your brain.

We're talking about cyber security, and my guest is Jessica Barker Walker. She's author of a book called Hacked: The Secrets Behind Cyber Attacks. Jessica, when I get a notification that there's an update to some software or there's an update to an operating system, is that because They just figured out there was something wrong or somebody actually hacked? Or what triggers that?

It can be both. It will be generally that a vulnerability or multiple vulnerabilities have been identified. And so as soon as the update comes out, it's important to run that update, get that patch in place, because that vulnerability has become public knowledge, including knowledge for criminals, and they will be looking to exploit it if they haven't already. So updates come in, and it always feels like the wrong time. You may be in the middle of trying to meet a deadline. You might be about to jump on a virtual call. You might be shopping and really wanting to buy that wonderful pair of shoes, and an update comes in and you think, I'll do it later. I'll do it tomorrow. And usually that turns into the next day and the next day, which is leaving you vulnerable. Running the update as soon as possible is one of the biggest things you can do to stay secure online.

Is being a hacker, is committing these crimes a good business to be in? It seems like who's going to catch you? Because if you're not in the country, the laws don't apply to you. It seems like if you can get away with it, if you figure it out, you could make a lot of money.

Unfortunately, cyber criminals are making a lot of money, and there can be real challenges in identifying who is behind a crime and then being able to track them down and lock them up, partly because of issues with jurisdiction. If they're in another country that the victim's country doesn't have agreements with, doesn't have extradition with, then it's really challenging for law enforcement. This is why we have seen such an explosion in cybercrime, because organized criminal gangs who have been committing crime in lots of different ways, realized over the last decade that if they carry out crime online, it's easier, faster, cheaper, less risky, and more likely to succeed than crime in the physical world.

I can only speak from my own experience, but this actually happened very recently, and it happens frequently, probably because I'm somewhat in the public eye doing this podcast. But I get people wanting to friend me on LinkedIn or Facebook, and they are clearly not real. The picture doesn't make sense. They have a title that couldn't possibly be them. Why would they do that?

We've seen some cases of this in the past, and it certainly seems to be growing. Again, there are lots of reasons why. One reason can be if they connect with you, particularly someone who is an authority figure, someone who is trusted, someone who is, for example, in the public eye, then it lends credibility to that account, and they're able to connect with more people. And then they may send a message, Hey, Hey, could you look at my CV for me? I'm searching for a job. This happened with a case a few years ago on LinkedIn, a fake account, and was being used for espionage and nation state level attempts to attack certain industries. So they may send a malicious document, a malicious link. They may try and get information from you, personal information, financial information that they can use to carry out fraud. They may be trying to get you to click a link so that they can compromise your machine and get information from there or impersonate you and manipulate people in your circle into giving over information, access, or money.

What are some ways that maybe I wouldn't be aware of or not savvy to that might make me a victim?

One advancement in cybercrime that we have been seeing is, of course, the use of artificial intelligence. And this has really started to increase in the last year or so. It's likely to increase much more in the coming years. This is where phishing emails phishing phone calls, even video calls are being made to look more convincing by cyber criminals using AI. With AI, it's a force multiplier, of course, for all of us. It It adds speed, scale, and it adds sophistication to attempts by cyber criminals to manipulate us. So they're still sending lots of phishing emails, phishing messages in the more traditional sense that we all have become more used to, but they are also now doing phishing phone calls. There has been a increase in phone calls to parents and grandparents, and a voice on the line says, I have your child. They are in prison or they are in hospital, or I have kidnapped them, and asking for a ransom or a sum of money to get the child or grandchild out of the situation. And then the child's voice is heard on the line. So the parent or the grandparent hears their child or grandchild in distress, saying things like, Mom, mom, help me.

This bad man has me. Except it's not the actual voice. It's an impersonation. It's a mimic of the voice using deep fake technology. But of course, hearing that voice or seeing an image that looks exactly like your loved one is very convincing, obviously very distressing, and really plays into the emotional clouding of judgment where somebody, of course, is going to believe that is real, not understanding that this is what criminals can now do with artificial intelligence.

What has ever happened to... It used to be the big threat that you had to protect yourself from was malware, viruses. You don't hear so much about that anymore.

It's moved on. Cyber criminals have realized that they can do more and that they can carry out attacks, for example, ransomware, and get a lot more money without needing to necessarily be as technical. So now we have cybercrime as a service, ransomware as a service, where Where one set of criminals on the dark web offers a ransomware package, or a phishing package, or they will be selling passwords. And other criminals can come along with absolutely no technical skills or knowledge, and they can buy that ransomware package. They can pay a fee to the operator, and they can then attack organizations asking for huge sums of money by locking up their data. And they then can take a ransom and pay a fee to the criminal operation that is selling these criminal packages. So what we have is an evolution in how cybercrime really operates, and that's why it has exploded so much in recent years.

Lastly, the whole concept of two-step authentication seems like a pretty good idea, but it's also a big pain in the neck. Is it worth it? I mean, Does it really do something?

Two-factor authentication is one of the most important things you can do to protect your accounts. It adds a double layer of security, so you're not just relying on passwords.

Because then they have to send you a text or something, and only you have your phone. So theoretically, that would stop somebody getting any further.

Yeah. And even more secure is to use authentication apps, which can't be hijacked, which sometimes the text messages can be. So Using an app which generates those codes for you is great security practice.

Well, this has been really enlightening because I do what I think I'm supposed to do, and I try to stay safe, but I don't really necessarily understand what all the scams and tricks are, and you've explained it pretty well. I've been speaking with Jessica Barker. She is one of the world's leading experts on cybercrime, and she is author of the book, Hacked: The Secrets Behind Cyberattacks. There's a link to that the book in the show notes. Thank you, Jessica. You've explained this really, really well.

I appreciate that so much, Michael.

When you think about all the stars and planets in our galaxy and beyond in the entire universe. It's hard not to wonder if there's life out there somewhere, not necessarily alien beings coming here in spaceships, any life, plant life, bacteria, animals of any kind. There must be some life out there somewhere, and yet we actually haven't found it. But we're looking, and one of the people who's looking is Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger. She is Director of the Carl Sagan Institute to Search for Life in the Cosmos at Cornell University and an Associate Professor of Astronomy. She's author of a book called Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos. Hi, Lisa. Welcome. Glad to have on something you should know.

Hi, Michael. Thanks for having me.

First, explain what it is you do every day.

I search for life on worlds that go around other stars. So not our sun? Basically, I'm wondering, are we alone in the universe?

Are we alone in the universe?

That's such a good question. I'm glad you asked.Thank you.

You didn't tee that up too well, did you?

That is exactly what we're trying to figure For the first time in history, we have a telescope that can catch enough light from small worlds that could be like ours, but orbiting other stars, so circling around other stars, that we are the generation that can find out. I think it's an amazing era of exploration we all live in.

Since you do this every day, just yes or no, I guess, but have you found anything or have you not yet Have you found anything? Not what's coming in the future and all that, but to date, have we found anything?

We found possibilities, but I can't say yes or no yet because we didn't have a big enough telescope to get enough light of this planet to figure out if something is breathing there, too. And a telescope is basically like a light bucket. Think about it being out in the rain. If you have a big bucket, then there's a lot of water in it at the end. If you have a small bucket, you have not so much And so astronomers building bigger and bigger telescopes to catch more and more light to see these tiny planets, because if you put the Earth 100 times next to each other, that's the diameter of the Sun. So the Earth is so small compared to its star, the sun. But with the new telescope, we actually have a shot to catch enough light to answer your question with a yes or no in the next couple of years.

And so when you look at these other other planets circling around other stars, how far away are they?

The closest ever star. Of course, the sun is our star, so light means eight minutes from the sun to us. If the sun were to If we were to look at the sun, we wouldn't know for eight minutes. But the next star over, the neighboring star to our sun, Proximus and Dauri, that one is four light years away. So even light needs four years to get from there to us. And so we basically see that star like it was four years ago. And even that star, our neighboring star, has a planet that could be like ours. So the worlds of possibilities You are there. When you go out at night, so, Michael, I would like you to do that tonight, go out and count five stars. One, two, three, four, five. One out of five stars has a planet. At the distance, meaning it's not too hot and not too cold, and small enough to be a rock like the Earth. That's what I'm talking about when I say possibilities. Our galaxy, the Mccleway, has 200 billion stars. We live in this amazing times with billions of possible other Earth in the first telescope that can figure it out.

How long have you been doing this?

I've been doing this for about 20 years because in 1995, that's when I started studying, we found the first planet around another star, and I was hooked. I was like, Oh, my God, we live in the time where we could figure out if we're alone and I can help? That's when I started doing this.

I remember hearing, maybe it was Carl Sagan. I think you talk about it in the book, and he said something about the number of planets, just the odds are, just sheer odds that there's got to be life somewhere else. Can you talk about that?

I think the odds are forever in our favor. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has 200 billion stars. We've learned that one out of five stars hosts a planet that could potentially be like our own. I think we could all say the numbers seem to be forever in our favor with billions of possibilities out there.

When you say you're searching for life, you're not necessarily searching for ET. You're searching for any life, plant life, just something that's alive.

Oh, absolutely. You want to find any life. If you look at the Earth, life was around for about 3.5 billion years. If you take the Earth and think about it, its whole history is a 24-hour Then around 5:00 AM, life started on this planet. You and me, so humankind, is roughly in the last second before midnight. I just figured if we found one example of life out there, because it's at the verge of technical possibility right now, it's so hard to do. But that will tell us that the universe must be teeming with life. Wouldn't that be an amazing thing to consider when you watch the stars at night?

Yes, it would be. It's so hard to look up in the sky or even to look at a picture of our galaxy and where we are in it. It's just so hard to imagine we're not alone, that there is other life somewhere else. But that in itself is not proof. That's just wishful thinking or chances are.

I completely agree with you. What I find so fascinating is that we don't have to Our wishful think much longer because all our wishful thinking got us to the point of building this big telescope that can catch the light of these small worlds and figure out what its composition is, what its makeup is. The way that works is that light and matter interact. Einstein said E is M, C squared, if you remember that from school. But basically a molecule, think about a water molecule so that's two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule has a structure. There's the O in the middle, if you think about high school, and then there were the two Hs that were hanging off it. If you hit that structure with just the right energy, it can start to rotate and to swing. But molecules all look different, so it requires a different energy to make each individual molecule swing. And so now the trick is, I look this planet very far away as an astronomer. The stuff that's missing, the light that's missing that doesn't get to my telescope, tells me which molecules the light actually encountered on its path to me.

Without a spaceship over these big distances, I can actually explore these other small rocky worlds. And that's what we all do together. It took all of us to get together to build this telescope, to have this dream of figuring out whether we're alone in the universe or not.

So Captain Kirk said that space is the final frontier, and that all sounds very great, and you're out looking for life, and that's what scientists do. And when you find it, so what?

That's a great question. So for me, that's going to be like a champagne bottle in a celebration because as I said before, it's at the verge of technical possibilities that it means if we find one, just one, there must be so many more out there. But it's perfectly fair to say, Well, I don't care if we're alone in the universe. But this search for other Earth and for life is also an exploration of other Earth-like planets. The more of those we find, the better we understand the one that we live on, and the better we can safeguard it against any future things that come up.

To step out of science, maybe a little bit into science fiction, it's one thing to look for life out in the universe. It's another thing to look for alien life on Earth. Where do these two things intersect, if at all, or is one science and one's just science fiction?

What I take from that is the excitement and the love for the idea that there could be other life out there. But so far, We do not have any evidence that holds up under scientific scrutiny. That means you have to make sure that this data is real, that you understand what you see and so on and so forth. We haven't found any evidence for life that's not from our planet yet. We're looking. But what I find fascinating is that we have the tools in place to find them on other worlds around other stars. The other way that I think about it is that let's assume, and again, I don't know this, but let's assume that the universe were teeming with life. I do that in class. I say to my students, Look, I can go to one out of two planets, okay? Both of them show signs of life. We know that one is 5,000 years older than we are, and we know that one is 5,000 years younger. Which one would you guys like me to pick to go to? 95% of my students say, Well, the more advanced one, because we want to figure out what's going on, we want to learn something, technology, it'd be so cool.

When you turn that around, the Earth is my favorite planet without any question. But if there were many, many, many other worlds out there, then maybe we're just not the most interesting destination yet.

You haven't found life yet that you can point to and say, Yes, we found life But in the 20 years you've been doing this, what have you found?

We have found planets where there's more than one star in the sky. The tattooing that you might see in Star Wars is actually something that exists out there. They have many, many planets that would have a double sunset and sunrise. What is amazing, they are worlds that have lost their star. They got kicked out, basically, from the system, the star and the planets, and they are now forever are wondering lonely through space. I think it's just amazing to be at this pioneering step where you just find these first glimpses into the diversity of other worlds. I sometimes imagine like this. You talked about Captain Kirk or Captain Janeway. Basically, when they're going out, like the real versions in the future, I just envision that they have this really old map on on their dashboard. And this map has a couple of planets, and it's very old and very antique. And they were like, Oh, look at this. This is when they did the first steps. And I was like, Yeah, that was me. They are having this on their dashboard because we are now charting our path into the sky, and it might take a while, but we're doing the first steps right now.

Well, it would seem it would take an awful long time. If we can't somehow figure out how to go faster than the speed of light, I mean, everything is going to take forever. Discover.

Yeah, but this is where the engineers, Hey, engineers, if any engineer has listened to this or anybody is interested in this and wants to become an engineer, Hey, you're up. Come on. The astronomers have found worlds where we could go to. Go and figure out how we can fly there.

Are you able to tell when you look at planets in other solar systems, or are you able to tell how old they are as compared to this planet, or is everything the same age because of the Big Bang, it all started at the same time?

Basically, stars can be younger and older than us. There's a world that's called Kepler 444. Well, that's the star. And then it has a couple of Earth-size worlds around it that are a bit too hot for life, but they are so old. Kepler 444 was older than the Earth is right now when the sun and the Earth was born. They are ancient worlds out there, and there are also worlds out there that are born right now because the star and planet formation, so wind stars and planet forms, is ongoing and has been ongoing for a while. So not everything is the same age as the sun. There's a lot of diversity. To me, that's another fascinating aspect. What about if we see a world that's a couple of million years older than us and shows signs of life? What What does that mean? How is it there? I think that's another fun question just to envision. Sometimes I agree to be with you. Sometimes I think, wouldn't it be great if I could be 2,000 years in the future or 5,000 years in the future. But to be honest, being at this verge where something all of a sudden becomes possible that was impossible before, like the exploration of other worlds, even if I can't step a foot on it, that That's a real fun part of science and life to be at.

We all explore it because we're all going to figure it out together.

You mentioned a couple of moments ago, a planet that is a little too hot to support life. But you often see in science fiction anyway, that there are creatures from other planets that would be inhospitable to life on Earth, but that life would adapt and that maybe what would be poison to us would be an atmosphere that would be completely conducive to them because that's how creatures had to evolve on those planets.

Absolutely. That's another fascinating part of the story, which Meaning that what about if life is not like we are? What about if it breathes other gasses? That's absolutely possible. But currently, we cannot make life in the lab. What is a much bigger problem than you think Because if we could make life in the lab, we could start changing the chemistry. We could throw something different in, take the water out, put some methane legs in, see if life gets started again. What we're doing right now is we're focusing on life as we know it, so carbon scaffolding, water as a solvent. Every life you see around you on the Earth uses those. But even on the Earth, and this is why we created what we call the Color Catalog of Life at the Calsegian I citated Cornell that I lead, we basically took diverse life. If you go to Sulfur Springs, you will see all these gorgeous colors like in Yellowstone. These are different kinds of life. And exactly following your logic, we were like, Well, we don't want to miss signs of life if they're out there and they're just different from you and me in modern Earth.

And so we're making a catalog, an inventory, about how different life could look like and how it would look like to my telescope. We're searching for something specific, life as we know it, and then we're keeping our eyes open for surprises.

You said something a few minutes ago I want to circle back to because you said there's a solar system that has two Suns like we saw in Star Wars. But how do planets orbit two Suns?

Perfect question. The way to think about it is these two stars circle each other, they dance around each other in a close embrace, and then a planet goes a little bit further away around both of them. Or it also can happen that this embrace, this dance of the two stars is a little bit further apart. There's just enough space for one planet or for a few planet that circled one of the two dance partners in that gravitational dance of the Cosmos that stellar companions do.

Do you ever get frustrated? I mean, you've been doing this for 20 years and you're close, but you haven't found anything yet. Do you ever go, God, this has taken so long?

Actually, you would think that. I get why you would think that. But honestly, I learn something new every day and I'm like, Oh, my God, I didn't think about this. Oh, my God. So yes, frustrated because I would like to deal with what we learn in the universe, but much more curious about all the new things I keep learning about life on our own planet and how it works, and then about tools that I'm developing from that for our telescope to spot it somewhere else. I would say sometimes I don't I don't time to get frustrated, but once in a while, my vision of the future is that I want to go out, good bottle of wine, sit under the stars, look up and say, Look, that planet up there That could have a planet where somebody else is also looking at us right now. That's what I want to do, and this is what I work towards. I think it would just give us all a completely different connection to the sky around us and to the Cosmos because we are part of the Cosmos through and through.

Is there any reason to think, the further out we go out and look at other planets, that we will discover other elements, the things that are not on our periodic table, things we've never seen before or not?

What's really interesting is that when we look around in the universe, the laws of physics and the different elements that we have identified here on the Earth seem to be everywhere universal. What that means is we haven't found anything that's completely different except for the core of a black hole. So what's in the inner part of a black hole, we do not know. But Other than that, if we just look around, everything is like what we expect. Maybe not expect, but we can explain all the different elements we see. We can explain the laws of physics we see in the different corners of the universe that we can spot. And so the laws of physics and the materials around us seem to be universal. What is great, because other than that, it would be even harder to understand what we're seeing.

Well, I always find conversations like this about what might be out in the universe so enjoyable, especially with someone like you, because you are scientifically looking at this stuff. It isn't science fiction, but the possibilities are just so exciting. I've been speaking with Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger. She's Director of the Carl Sagan Institute to Search for Life in the Cosmos at Cornell University, and she is an associate professor there as well. She's author of a book called Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet hunting in the Cosmos. There's a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, Lisa. This was really a lot of fun.

Thanks so much, Mike. This has been great fun.

The next time you face a writing challenge, like you can't start, you don't know how to start something, change the font color to green or write with green ink. It turns out that that can have a real positive impact on your train of thought. We process the color green as go, and the color is also credited with some creative properties. When put to the test, work by writers who composed their thoughts in green were graded as more thought-provoking and out-of-the-box. Of course, if you're writing for business or school, go ahead and give green a try, but you might want to switch it back black or blue before you submit it. And that is something you should know. As you might imagine, a lot of work goes into putting these episodes together, and we're always hoping to reach more people, and you could help us. It would mean so much It's a great way to support this podcast by just telling someone, sharing an episode, which is easy to do on whatever app you're listening to this on, and just share an episode and ask other people to listen. I would certainly appreciate it. I'm Mike Carruthers.

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