What are the chances of intelligent life beyond Earth?

Since putting the first man on the Moon in 1969, scientists have continued to push our knowledge and understanding of life and existence in vast unknown frontiers of space. Whether through Mars colonies or alien life forms, we're all wondering what and who can survive beyond Earth's atmospheres. In this episode of Access to Excellence, associate professor of computational and data sciences Anamaria Berea discusses her research on Mars settlements and Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon as she and President Gregory Washington debate the age-old question: What are the chances of intelligent life beyond Earth?  

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Trailblazers in research,innovators in technology,
and those who simply have a good story:
all make up the fabric thatis George Mason University.
We're taking on the grand challengesthat face our students, graduates,
and higher education is ourmission and our passion.
Hosted by Mason PresidentGregory Washington,
this is the Access to Excellence podcast.

(00:26):
Since putting the firstman on the Moon in 1969,
scientists have continued to push ourknowledge and understanding of life and
existence in vast unknownfrontiers of space.
Whether through Marscolonies or alien life forms,
we're all wonderingwhat and who can survive

(00:50):
beyond Earth's atmospheres.
Joining me today is someone who'sworking to unravel the mysteries of life
beyond Earth, both humanand otherwise. Anamaria
Berea is an associate professor ofcomputational and data sciences,
researching the emergence ofcommunications and fundamental

(01:13):
patterns of communication in bothliving and non-living systems.
Anamaria has workedwith NASA and others to
help humanity boldly gowhere no man or woman
has gone before. Anamaria,welcome to the show.
Thank you. It's good to be here.

(01:35):
Well, look, this is gonna be really fun.
You've got a lot of cool stuffyou're working on, and I am really,
really excited to jump into it.
So let's start with your work at NASA.
You were selected to participatein an independent study
on UAPs or unidentified anomalous

(01:57):
phenomenon.
Our listeners are probably more familiarwith the term that I grew up with,
which is UFOs, ,Unidentified Flying Objects.
So can you explain the difference betweenthese terms and what is the rationale
behind the change in terminology?
Sure. So UFOs comes fromUnidentified Flying Objects,

(02:18):
which was the original term thatthe community and the public
used for several decades afterthe forties when we had allegedly
the first observation of whatmore popular was called the flying
saucer. Right.
But to get things more seriousand into the scientific realm,

(02:39):
scientists decided to change thename into Unidentified Anomalous
Phenomena, which is not necessarilyabout flying phenomena. Right?
So this can be any typeof unidentified phenomena,
maybe coming from the sea or sub sea.
Most of them might have beenobserved in our atmosphere.

(03:00):
So the rationale for the changein the name has been to basically
cast this serious scientific lens tothe phenomenon so that we can actually
study it.
Well, that's interesting becauseI'm gonna tell you, you know,
you hear the term UAPs andthat sounds as mysterious
and intriguing as UFOs.

(03:23):
I was always afraid of them growing upbecause there was this connection with
UFOs and UAPs and,
and popular culture with extraterrestrialsand alien life forms. Right.
But there are terrestrial objects,as you, you just highlighted,
that could be included in thecategory of UAPs. Is that right?
That is correct.

(03:44):
So the idea here is toactually emphasize the word
unidentified, and the other word isphenomenon . Right? Right.
So I'm a scientist at thecore. So for us in, in science,
whenever we see something thatwe cannot explain or understand,
we want to cast the, um,

(04:04):
scientific method and to tryto understand this phenomenon.
So it's science thatdraws that unidentified to
identified, right? So what we have inthe middle, whether it's anomalous,
whether it's flying, whether it'sterrestrial, whether it's under the sea,
that is a different story.

(04:25):
So that speaks to where thatobservation has been made.
Understood. Understood.
So if we were to just pull back for asecond and ask some very general questions
about UAPs,
like what are the potential impacts ofUAPs on issues of national security,
right, or on our economic, uh, uh, structure?

(04:47):
So that is the big question, right?And when it comes to UAPs, we,
for a very long time,
we have not had actually scientistslooking at this phenomenon.
They did come mostly from thedefense side, if I can say so.
And one of the reasons they are stillunidentified is due to all the, um,
classified observations.

(05:08):
And these classified observationsare not necessarily because the
government doesn't wantus to know what they are,
but because they have been madeby sensors or people that were at
the time under classifiedconditions. Right?
So obviously these can pose, um,
problems for national defense. Theycan pose problems on the economic side.

(05:32):
They can also pose problemsin, uh, the social realm.
So maybe some,
some of these Hollywood movies kindof allude to the idea that once the
discovery of alien life is made,
that we can potentially have riots.
We can potentially have conflicts,
which all of these will pose problemsboth to the national defense and

(05:55):
to economics. But while popularly,
we are thinking about UAPs and UFOsconnected to alien life, right?
And whether we have alien life thatis right here next to us, right on,
on Earth, that is notalways a connection, right?
So again,
I want to stress the fact that wehave an unidentified phenomenon

(06:17):
that we don't know what it is.
So it might as well be a new physical oratmospheric phenomenon that we haven't
discovered yet. Right? Because we don'tknow everything in science right now,
or in physics or in chemistry.
Maybe it is an optical phenomenon, right?
So until we can actuallyscientifically analyze this,

(06:37):
it's really difficult for us tosay, what are these things? Right?
And we cannot say that onlybased on public opinion,
and we cannot say that only basedon intuition or allegations.
We do need rigorous scientific studiesfor this so that we can turn that
unidentified into identified.

(06:58):
Understood. Understood.
So you are also affiliatedwith the SETI or
S.E.T.I. Institute,
commonly known as the Search forExtraterrestrial Intelligence.
Can you tell us a little bitmore about that institute,
and a little bit more about your work?

(07:19):
Yeah, sure. So I've been affiliated withthe SETI Institute for a few years now,
since before I was in, uh, the, uh,
independent study panel with NASAbecause the institute is looking at all
aspects of alien life. So we arenot talking about little green men.
What we are talking about ismicrobial life that can potentially

(07:40):
be on other planets or moons within oursolar system or outside of our solar
system, and also potentialintelligent life,
which can also be potentiallywithin our galaxy.
So the SETI Institute actuallyhas two different axis of
study. One is with respect tobiosignatures, as I was mentioning,

(08:01):
microbial life,
whether it's current orpast on planets like Mars
or on the Moon, like, uh, Europa.
And this October we have Europa Clipperthat is going to launch to study that
further or Titan, right, whichis the moon of, of Saturn, or,
and the other axis ison techno signatures.

(08:22):
So techno signatures meanfinding signals or signs
of technology anywhere in the universe,
and particularly on exoplanets. Uh,
so exoplanets being planets thatorbit other suns than our own.
Right. Well, you mentioned Europa.
What is Europa and why is it important?

(08:44):
Right. So Europa, it'swhat's called an icy moon.
So that means that with some pastmissions that were just doing flybys,
so flybys Jupiter andthe moons of Jupiter,
they observed that Europa isenveloped in an ice crust.
But underneath this ice crust,there is a very vast ocean.
And wherever you have water, thereis a high probability of life.

(09:09):
Now, the only way we can accuratelydetermine whether there is life
underneath the icy crust of Europais by sending a probe, right?
Sending a mission there tobasically sample in C two and
analyze the composition ofthe ocean on, uh, Europa.
So Europa is one of the highprobability candidates when it comes to

(09:33):
finding these biosignatures withinour solar system. So Europa is one,
Io is another one, which is another moonof Jupiter, and Titan is another one.
And there will be another mission calledDragonfly that will launch probably
late in the 2030s and lookfor signals of life on, um,
Titan, which has oceans of methane.

(09:56):
Outstanding.
So any plans or analysesor studies in the work
works to look at planetsoutside of our solar system?
Yes. So that is the main purposeof the James Webb telescope.
So the James Webb telescope issampling through spectrometry,

(10:16):
the exoplanetary atmospheres onthese exoplanets that orbit, uh,
suns that are not ourown sun. Right. Okay.
And through the compositionof these atmospheres,
scientists try to determine whether someof those chemicals or combinations of
chemicals can be produced bybiological processes. Right?
So you can infer from thecomposition of the atmosphere if

(10:40):
there can be life on that planet.
So going back to your question aboutmy affiliation with the SETI Institute,
it's actually then when my affiliationwith the institute came about when I was
part of this project withFrontier Development Lab,
where we simulated theexoplanetary atmospheres based on
metabolic networks. So findingmetabolic networks on the, uh,

(11:03):
surface of a planet.How will that processes,
how will they change thecomposition of an, uh,
atmosphere on that exoplanet, right?
And we create lots of simulationsand try to understand what kind of
combinations we can have at the microscale on the surface of the planet in this
metabolic networks and the macro scalewith respect to the planetary atmosphere.

(11:26):
So as a computational scientist,
what is actually your role inthe search for life beyond Earth?
So I mostly look at data andanalyzing data and that creating
simulations. So again,
we can have data with respect to theobservation of the atmospheres, right?
And we know what kind of compositionsand chemicals are in those exoplanetary

(11:51):
atmospheres. So we combine thedata analysis with simulations.
We also have data with respect tometabolic networks as we understand
life on Earth,
but trying to eliminate many ofthe biases or constraints that we
currently have about life on Earth,
because we are not looking just forlife that is similar to life on Earth.

(12:14):
We can look for life that can bequite different from life on Earth.
So it's there where this idea ofcreating synthetic data from simulations
where it comes in.
So in the project that I wasmentioning with metabolic networks,
we actually took data fromE. coli, which is, uh,
has a well-known genome,

(12:35):
and we modified that withzeros and ones, right?
So we simulated thatgenome, with zeros and ones,
and then we created different types of E.
coli that don't necessarilyexist on Earth right now.
And that could feed from,
or that exude other types of gasesthan the ones that we know that E.

(12:57):
coli has on Earth. Right?
Oh, really? So you wereable to create this?
In the computer, right.
Yes. In theory.
In theory in the computer. Right? Andwe, uh, by creating these simulations,
again,
we were trying to understand whichkinds of genomes or alterations in the
genomes for E.
coli could produce those kind ofgases or combinations of gasses.
And we looked particularlygreenhouse gases,

(13:19):
which are more likely to be a biosignature for life on the surface.
So again, which kind of combinationsin the metabolic networks on and the,
uh, genome of E.
coli could render those combinationsthat we can potentially observe with the
James Webb, uh, telescope.
So another recent project of yourswas an exploration of the future

(13:44):
of Mars colonists throughan agent-based modeling
approach.
Mm-Hmm. . That's right.
So agent-based modelingis a type of simulation.
It's different than the simulationthat I was mentioning for exoplanetary
atmospheres. So in this case,with an agent-based model,
we are able to model interactionsbetween agents and these agents

(14:08):
can be people or can be animals. Theycan interact with an environment.
Most of the times it's people. Right. Soin this particular project, we'll, um.
You were looking atpeople in this project.
In this project, we are looking atpeople. So this project came to me as, um,
so a collaborator of mine:
he basically saw this paper thatwas published by another author

(14:30):
who used a mathematical, uh, model,
which was very similar to populationdynamics models and trying to figure out
what is the minimum number of peoplethat we can have on a planet so that we
can sustain a colony on Mars in, inthis case. Right. Right. So basically,
how many people do you need to send toMars so that you can have a sustainable

(14:50):
colony there?
That's right. And I think he came outwith, what, 22 people? Is that right?
? No, that's my number. So, okay.He came up with a very large number,
150. And this collaborator of mine fromBlue Marble Space Institute of Science,
he came and he asked me, canI verify that number? Right.
And can we validate that? And atthat point, my students and I,

(15:12):
we created this simulation agent-basedmodel where we looked at, okay,
if we send people on Mars,assuming we have the technology,
which currently by the way,doesn't exist, right? So we are,
we're still working on that technology.
Maybe! Elon Musk, Elon Musk will. Right?
. Alright.
So assuming we have that technology,which currently doesn't exist,

(15:34):
right? And we can put thefirst man on Mars, which again,
it's still probably at least acouple of decades away from us, uh,
let's say that, uh, yeah,
we can send some people to Mars and howmany of these do we need so that we can
have a sustainable colony? Inour model, our assumptions,
I think are a little bit more realisticthan the pure mathematical model in the

(15:56):
sense that we assume that you can'treally send a hundred people at
once. Right.
It's any of these shuttles they canhave at maximum four astronauts. And,
uh,
assuming that you can send first fourastronauts and then later maybe another
four and so on, right? You createthis colony, which by the way, uh,

(16:17):
now we are referring to it as settlement.
So there have been some debates in thefield about terminology here between
colony, habitat, settlements.So now we are more on, uh,
the settlement side, . Right? Okay.
So another assumption in our modelis the interactions between people,
which the other mathematicalmodel did not have.

(16:37):
And through theinteractions of the people,
this can have both positive andnegative effects in terms of psychology,
but also in terms of work and how theycan live and work together in a habitat,
which basically you are thinking ofa very closed environment, right?
It's not like you would be able tojust roam around the planet given the

(17:00):
inhospitable conditions.
And we included in our model manyfactors with respect to how much air they
would need, how much food, how much water,
how much of that they canextract from the planet,
by breaking down the water that, uh,you can find on the ice shelves on Mars.
And we accounted for that.
We also accounted for resupplyshuttles because if we are to be

(17:24):
realistic,
it's not like you send a bunch of peopleon Mars and you just leave them there.
Right. And that's it. They,you cut off with Earth.
Once you can send the first shuttle,you'd be able to send several others.
And it's just like, it happensnow with the ISS, right?
The International Space Station, theyhave resupply shuttles all the time.

(17:44):
So we assume for that, and wecame up in our simulations,
we have a much lower number than the onethat was advanced by that paper: 150.
So in our paper, basicallyanything in terms of tens, right?
So anything above 40,
50 people should be able to have a

(18:07):
stable settlement on Mars.
And the lowest number that we couldcome up in our simulation under very
specific conditions was 22. So that'swhere that 22 number comes from.
I see.
And those are based on, again,
like very specific conditions withrespect to how many disasters can be
on the habitat, or how many disasterscan be with the resupply shuttles,

(18:30):
how long will it take. We alsoaccounted for a technology factor.
So we are assuming that intime technology will improve.
And that it'll be able to sendpeople and goods there in faster

time than right now (18:41):
the average is between six and nine months. And yeah,
we accounted for a very smallimprovement in technology too. So.
So, but you would need to havesome mechanism, I presume,
for people to grow theirown food, is that right?
Yes, that's right. And there are manyscientists right now working on growing,
for example, tomatoes out of soil thatis very similar to the Martian soil.

(19:06):
And what type of enrichment do you needto do for that specific soil so that you
can, uh, grow food and yeah. Thereare many people who are looking at,
especially in, uh, inbotany, in the botany field,
just like in the movie TheMartian, right. .
Just like in The Martian.
. Yeah. They're looking thoughat tomatoes, not necessarily potatoes.

(19:27):
So .
Understood. Understood. So, you know,
at some point in time you alwaysshould ask the question why, right.
What are the benefits to a futuresettlement on Mars? What do,
what do you imagine, uh, that, andwhat do you imagine it will look like?
Yeah. Yeah.
That is a very good question becauseI've seen lots of articles in the media

(19:47):
with respect to mining the Moon ormining an asteroid or mining Mars. Right.
And there have been very feweconomic studies actually,
with respect to how much return oninvestment you can get from mining
these really far away places and...
It depends on what's there.
It depends on what's there, buteven, let's say it's diamonds, right?

(20:07):
Which many people say it's rareEarth minerals or it's diamonds
and you'll bring them back to Earth,
but once you bring them back to Earthand you flood the markets on Earth,
the price will go down.Right? That's right.
So I dunno how much return oninvestment you can have with that.
I think the bigger question with respectto both Mars and Moon is geopolitical

(20:29):
ones.
So it makes more sense fromthe geopolitical advantage and
from the, um,
scientific advantage than it actuallydoes from an economic standpoint.
Maybe later on, I dunno, decades fromnow, hundreds of years from now, yes,
you can have a sustainable economybetween Mars, Moon, and Earth,

(20:50):
right?
But it's something that it's probablynot going to happen too soon.
Understood. Understood.
So artificial intelligence is amajor topic of discussion right now,
and it plays a role in your workand in data science, obviously.
How could AI play a rolein a Mars settlement?

(21:10):
Mm-Hmm. . So that,that's a really good question.
When it comes to studying phenomenathat can potentially happen in the
future, we don't have tonsof data for that, right?
Because it's something that's gonnahappen, didn't happen in the past.
In the absence of data, youcan't really actually use AI.
But another way through which we canlook at this is either through synthetic

(21:34):
data. So we can create data, just likeI was mentioning with the other project,
with the explanatory atmospheres.That's one way or another way,
which we are doing right now,
is to collect lots of casestudies from proxy environments.
So we advanced that project with the mars
settlement. We are actuallynow looking at the Moon,

(21:56):
and we are looking at how wecan help the Artemis IV and V
program. So the Artemis IV programwill put space station around the Moon.
Artemis V will put the, uh, Moon baseon, uh, the South Pole of the Moon.
So in order for us to be as accurate aspossible so that we can actually help
the program,

(22:16):
that is by looking at the proxy casestudies of human behavior in extreme
environments.
So we've taken as many case studiesand future that we could from
research outpost in Antarctica,from the submarines,
from oil rigs, and othersimilar kinds of, uh,
extreme environments from theanalog missions such as Mars

(22:39):
analogs and Moon analogs that are, uh,
on Earth and obviously theInternational Space Station.
And by amassing all the dataanalyzing that we are hoping to
identify those nuggets of interestinghuman behavior or human psychology
that will play a significant role inthe success of these missions on, um,

(23:00):
at this point we are looking at the Moon,hopefully in the future at Mars too.
Oh, that's really cool. Alright, sonow we get to the moment of truth.
Alright.
So I got a series of questions,you know, we're gonna,
we're gonna get a little fun here.
Sounds good.
If you don't mind.
Sure.
Okay. Question number one:
do you believe that thereis intelligent...Well,

(23:25):
let me take the question back.
Do you believe that thereis life on other planets?
Yes, I believe the probabilityto find life on other planets.
I do think it's quite high if weare talking about all the planets
in, at least in our galaxy,
and let's not mention how manygalaxies we know are out there.
Okay. So let me take that questionto the next step. Give me an idea.

(23:51):
Gimme your thoughts onintelligent life on other planets.
With respect to intelligent life. And,and there actually even the other life.
Are we talking aboutsimultaneous life that exists
right now living versuspast versus future?
I'm talking about right now.
Right now. Simultaneous with us.

(24:11):
Right now.
So for that, I actually havea low probability for that.
We have the Drake equation.
Which actually is good heuristicor indicator for us in how we can
calculate these probabilities.And with the direct equation,
while we might havelots of planets within,

(24:32):
or exoplanets withinthe habitable zone, uh,
where life can develop and emerge,
there is an entirely different questionwith respect to whether that life
can evolve into intelligentlife. That's one step.
The next step would be,
can that intelligent life evolve intoa life that can create technology,

(24:54):
right. Because maybe they won't. Right?
But just with respect to intelligent life,
we actually don't know that becausewe only have a sample of one. Right?
I know, I know. So. But, but let me,
throw out some numbers andyou tell me where I'm off.
Alright.
We know that there is an estimated about a

(25:15):
hundred billion galaxies.
That's right. Yeah.
Okay. Each galaxy,
each single galaxy has billionsof stars, as does ours.
And each of those stars has in many
sense, lots of planets onthose individual stars. Right?

(25:37):
A hundred billion galaxies,
billions of stars each withmost likely multiple planets.
And so if you use theKepler data, alone, it
estimates 300 million habitable.
In the habitable zone.
Yes. With environments nottoo different from Earth.

(25:57):
That's right.
Yeah. 300 million. And outof those 300 million planets,
your estimate is very low.
For intelligent life.
For intelligent life. Yeah.
So my estimate...
So help me, so help meunderstand why that,
'cause the numbers tell me that bygolly, there's gotta be intelligent life.
So, uh,

(26:18):
your numbers are correct in sayingthat the probability for life is high
in generic. But now.
Again, I'm not talking about amebasand protos, I'm talking about.
They're about humanlike. Right?Intelligence. Right. But again,
evolutionary processes require, um,
millions and millions of years. Right.

(26:41):
But we, but we're a young galaxy!
Yes.
But the question is moreabout are we early in the
evolution of emergence of intelligentlife versus are we late on
that? Right. If we aretalking about galaxy times.
So the question is whether theyare simultaneous with us, right.

(27:01):
And at the same level or similarlevel of intelligence with us.
So that is actually a
lower probability. .
Yeah, I hear you. We thinkwe're smarter than what we are.
I'm telling you right now,
my estimate is that itis a high probability of

(27:22):
intelligent life in multiple planets.
But we also have the Fermi paradox, right?
So if the probability ofintelligent life is so high,
then it means that we would haveintelligent life for different levels of
intelligence, then many of those wouldbe more intelligent than us, right?
Yes, I agree.
So we should be able to detectthose. So how come we haven't?

(27:46):
Right? No, wait. Why, why would we,why would we be able to detect those?
We're just now gettingthe capability to really
see outside of our galaxy. Right?
That's true. And also, Jill Tarter,
who is very famous in thetechno signatures field,
she said that basically we have onlysample just one glass--if we compare to an

(28:06):
ocean, one glass of water whenit comes to the whole universe.
Yeah, I, I agree with that.
But again, when we are talkingabout different timelines here,
so how long does it takefor intelligence to emerge?
There could be others that are way ahead.There could be some that are behind.
That's right. Yes.
There could be some in the middle.
Or extinct. Yes.

(28:28):
Or extinct, right? Uh,
there could be some places where lifewas distinguished intelligent life that
was distinguished millionsof years ago. Right?
That's right. Yeah.
And so I,
I I just think there aretoo many possibilities and,
and actually life occurs so easily,
right? It's not hard for, I'm nottalking about intelligent life,

(28:51):
I'm talking about just life in general.
It occurs so easily here.
Even in places where we thinkof are inhospitable, right?
Like we wind up finding life inplaces where you never thought--Right?
In volcanoes and and, uh, really cold--

(29:11):
Subsea vents.
Subsea areas.
Yeah. In hydrothermal vents. That's right.
In sulfuric acid type of environments.That's right. Mm-Hmm..
So you find this life,
you would never have thought thatlife could exist in these entities,
but we are finding it.
So my philosophy is you've gotta holdout the possibility for significant life
now. But there's one other thing.
You study this whole concept ofunidentified anomalous phenomenon. Right?

(29:36):
Well, I studied it while I was part ofthe independent study at NASA, but I'm,
I'm not studying that in right now.
Okay. So, so let's pull back from that.
Let's ask that--there are thousands
of unexplained cases of phenomena.
Some of which when youlook at it, you say, oh,

(29:59):
that looks strange, right? Igot a friend who's a pilot.
Who was a pilot in theNavy. And he's like,
look, I'm telling youwhat I saw wasn't human.
But it was real. You,you get what I'm saying?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean...
And when somebody with a trainedmilitary eye tells me that and I know

(30:23):
'em, then I'm like, okay. Okay. That, so,
so we got hundreds of cases of this stuff.
Sure, sure. We have lots of reportsfrom pilots, not just in the military,
actually some commercial pilots as well.
But I trust the militarypilot differently.
It's not that we don'ttrust these testimonies.
We trust all testimonies and we knowthat people are convinced of what

(30:44):
they see,
but also our brains arehighly trained to identify
patterns where patterns are not, right.
Like finding Jesus ina loaf of bread. Right.
Or finding the shape of a dog in theclouds and so many others. Right.
Because that's how weare wired biologically.
I know. But these cases arebeyond that, right. When.

(31:08):
Sure.
When a guy's flying an aircraftand he's looking out of his window
a few hundred meters away fromhim, he sees another craft.
Sure.
And that craft takes offwith a speed by which
he can't even, he's already at, youknow, Mach one and a half or so,
this thing takes off andleaves him standing still.

(31:30):
Yes.
He's like, okay, that'ssomething. That is not human.
But what I trust more than any human,no matter how well trained they are,
including astronauts, issensors and sensor data.
And we can make sense only what weobserve, we respect to velocity,
heat patterns. Right. In this phenomena.
So unless we can observe these andwe can compare them with ground

(31:55):
truth. So it's not that they didn't seesomething, but it's what did they see?
Right. So that is the question. Right.
No, I agree.
So that's a huge leap fromseeing something that you don't know what it is and
it's unusual and you cannotexplain it versus having
a leap that that is alien life.Right. There is no connection there.
But we have to understand thatif you are to see something

(32:19):
like that here,
they have discovered physics thatwe may not have discovered yet.
Sure.
Right? You know,
until Einstein's theoriesof relativity and others,
we had an understanding ofthe world that people kind of
accepted.
And then here comes Einstein with thesetheories that turn it on its head.

(32:44):
That it took 20, 30, 40,
50 years to validatesome of these theories.
But almost everything that Einsteinhas outlined, actually everything,
has actually been validatedand been verified.
But many itinerant scientists,

(33:05):
when he put his theories forward,
suggested they were not true becauseof exactly what you're saying,
because there were no physicalphenomena to validate it. Right.
And it was only after thephysical phenomena began to become
people, you know, ran studies to show, oh,

(33:26):
well actually time does dilate.We can show that it dilates.
Yeah. Right. So I mean, forus as scientists, we can only,
and not just scientists, I mean,
we can only do what we cando within the science and the
history that we are at right now. Right.
And there will be probably newdiscoveries in physics that will be very

(33:48):
interesting. And then my questionto you right back is that okay,
if there is physics thatwe still don't know,
then why can't we assume that theseUAPs are a physical phenomenon,
right. Of a physicsthat we don't know yet.
That they may encompass somephysics. So think about it this way,
if you had to travel from another galaxy

(34:12):
and get to this one, right?
It would require some physics thatwe just don't have. Right. It's not--
That's right. Because with the thresholdof the, um, light speed right now,
it's impossible to actually travelbetween galaxies and let's not forget that
the universe is expanding. Right.
And actually the space betweengalaxies is only increasing. Right.

(34:35):
And up to a point that,
I dunno how many billions of years ourskies will be completely dark because we
won't be even able to observe any galaxy.So imagine if you have a life form,
in those times they won't evenbe able to even conceptualize or
comprehend that there might be other lifeforms and other galaxies because they
wouldn't know other galaxies exist.

(34:56):
Yeah. But over that time,
their level of thinking andthought will actually progress
and.
Well, if we assume continuousevolution in civilizations,
but given the past of our socializations,
we don't know if a civilization isgoing to survive that long. Right.
, you are bringing up reallydeep, deep, but this is great.

(35:19):
This is the kind, and this is whyI love these kind of conversations,
because this is the kind of thingthat our young people, our students,
even our faculty and staff,
it's the kind of thing thatpeople should be talking about,
these discussions,
because they actually can lead to broader,
more substantivediscoveries. Right. I mean,

(35:42):
the reality is if youwere to be able to travel
at those speeds and those distances,
you probably wouldn't beusing combustion, right?
Because you would need adifferent kind of fuel.
That's right.
Which means that you'd probably havea very different heat signature. So,

(36:03):
so if you see somethingthat moves at a very,
very rapid speed and takesoff and you say, well, look,
the sensors didn't show anything with aheat signature capable of those speeds.
Maybe the answer to that question is--
I mean, even right now--
--The physics associated with that didn'tleave a heat signature because you're
probably not combusting. Right?

(36:23):
That's right.
And so, so.
So even right now, if I may say,
JPL is working on an ionpropulsion engine for Mars,
right?
So we won't have that kind of heatsignature for if we really want to go into
deep space and do humanexploration into deep space.
So ion combustion,
are they using the technology that wasgathered from the aliens at Rosewell?

(36:47):
.
Absolutely. , of course. .
Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Look, to me, theseare the kinds of conversations, uh,
that we should have. Yeah.
So no, absolutely. I mean, thereis actually a good friend of mine,
he is looking at the timeline ofcivilizations and whether 1 million year
long civilizations can exist. Right.

(37:09):
And we can actually do that right hereat George Mason with computer simulations
and grow artificial civilizationsin computers and see what are
the thresholds under which those...
This is good because this is atsome point in time as our models,
as the fidelity of our modelsbecome better and better.

(37:29):
And we're able to process more andmore data with artificial intelligence.
I think the bots are gonna come back andtell us this is about how much time you
have if you continue living like this.
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. I mean,
there are so many variablesfor any civilization.
But, but we, but we have so many,
I'm I'm saying before parts of ourplanet literally become inhabitable.

(37:53):
I mean, you're down in Florida.Yeah. You get hit with a storm,
then you get hit with another one.
What happens if you get hit withfour or five right after that?
At some point in time people say, look,I'm not going to live there because
I'm basically, my home isdestroyed every year. So,
so these aren't farfetched notions.
It's definitely not a farfetched notionto somebody who lives in that part of

(38:17):
Florida. Right now,
the debris that's right from onehurricane wasn't even removed before
the next hurricane came in. And so.
That's right.
And, and we're moving to a realitywhere you can have 1, 2, 3, 4,
5 of these in a row. Right.
And so this is a realoccurrence that we have to think

(38:37):
is possible. And we have tools now. Yeah.
That's right. So that's.
That can help us discern that.
That's why we are looking at extremeenvironments and how can humans survive in
extreme environments thatare not necessarily in space.
But this will definitelyhelp us get into space,
perhaps so that we can live in spaceand also help us understand how
we can survive the extremeenvironments right here on Earth.

(39:00):
And going back to whatyou were saying: exactly,
these kinds of questions can leadnot just with respect to are there
aliens,
but can help us understand many otherthings with respect to what do we need
to have long living civilizations?What is intelligence? What is actual,
actually life? Because we don't have anaccurate definition of life right now.

(39:21):
They can help us perhaps identify theorigins of life right here on Earth.
So all these questions are actuallyrelated to these broad field, of,
astrobiologists.
So when we ask questions with respectto are we alone in the universe,
we are touching upon so many otherthings, you know, in geology, in uh,
chemistry, in social sciences,in computational sciences,

(39:41):
in artificial intelligence, and so on.
I love it. Yeah. Let me wrap up here. But,
'cause you're not only in accomplishedprofessor here at George Mason,
you're also an alum.
Yes, I am.
Right. And you earned your PhDin computational science in 2012.
Yeah.
And so now you entered George Mason'scomputational science doctoral program
while you were workingon another doctorate.

(40:03):
Yep.
A PhD from the Academy of EconomicStudies in Romania. Right.
That's right.
And you completed your first PhD whileyou were taking classes at George Mason,
but what inspired you to do a seconddoctorate? Because that was fascinating,
too.
So my PhD in Romania is actually ineconomics. Right, right. But at the time,
I was really fascinated by the idea ofcomplex systems and what are complex

(40:24):
systems and system dynamicsand these kinds of things.
My PhD thesis was with respectto complex systems in economics,
but I wanted to do more,
and I've always wanted to doresearch and to do science.
So that's why I applied here.
I came here and it just happenedactually to have the overlap between
being accepted at George Mason Universitywith a fellowship and trying to finish

(40:48):
up my other doctorate there. Andyeah, I wanted to do more than,
and to expand more beyond economicsinto this idea of complex systems,
because as you can see, Ireally like interdisciplinarity,
and I like.
That is clear.
and that I like todabble into several sciences,
into many sciences andcomplex systems was one way.

(41:10):
Astrobiology is another way throughwhich I can find out more about
really important and big problems,how we can ask questions,
how we can apply scienceregardless of the science,
and apply many methods. Right.
So that's what I actually liketo be able to dabble into methods
between statistics and mathematics,

(41:33):
all the way to computational methodsthat can be anything between simulations,
deep learning, naturallanguage processing, and so on. So I think as scientists,
we kind of have to have, you know,
a big toolbox and reallygood critical thinking.
It's something that the economics fieldactually gave me how to think critically

(41:54):
and very rationally about problems.
And then just interacting with differentscientists in different fields has
been really, really beautiful.
Hmm. That is so cool. Yeah.
How do you see the workthat you've done in
economics, the, thelearnings that you had,
how does that influenceyour work in astrobiology?

(42:16):
Oh, that's a good question. So onceit's through critical thinking.
So as we had this debate aboutprobabilities low versus high,
I really don't take anything atbest face value . Right.
So I try to do my own research. Sothat actually comes from economics.
Another thing that comes fromeconomics is counterintuitive thinking.

(42:38):
We are wired towards intuitionand the taking leaps in our brain,
causal leaps, which are notnecessarily causal. Right.
So correlation is not causation.
So that's something that alsocame with me from economics.
And then another thing that actuallycame with me from economics into
astrobiology is something that you askme a little bit in the beginning with

(43:00):
respect to economic and social effects.
And it's something I'mtangentially interested in,
in what kind of social effects we canhave when we have big discoveries,
if we really have an announcement, right?Mm-Hmm. , we found life.
How will that have an effectinto society, into economics?

(43:21):
I'm not studying that, but I am intouch with people who are studying that.
I am a part of the post detectionhub, which is a hub hosted by St.
Andrews University.
And I'm also in the post detectioncommittee at the International
Astronomical Society,
so that we can understand better whatkind of protocols on the policy side

(43:43):
we might need so that we can actuallycome together as a planet with
multiple countries withdifferent understandings of space and alien life. Right.
And how we could mitigate any ofthe negative effects we might see in
society when announcements ofbig discoveries are, are made.
So you were also the firstwoman to earn a doctorate

(44:06):
in computational, uh, social sciencefrom George Mason University.
That's right. I was the fifth graduateand the first woman right here. Yeah.
Outstanding. So do you viewyourself as a trailblazer in STEM?
No, not really. I mean, I, um,
I see myself as someone who isreally passionate about my work as a

(44:27):
scientist, right? Mm-Hmm. .
And if my work ismeaningful and impactful,
I'm really happy about that. If,uh, students can learn from me,
especially my students,
and if I can work closely with mystudents and my collaborators in
these cool teams, that's reallynice and important for me.
If trailblazing is an emergent phenomenon,speaking about complex systems,

(44:51):
right? Is something that emergenceof this, it's fine with me, but yeah,
it's not something that I, I reallywanna be a trailblazer. Uh, no.
Well, that, that's,
most people who become trailblazersare not necessarily seeking to
become that they're justdoing their work, right? Yeah.
What do you hope other women inSTEM can learn from your success?

(45:13):
They can do anything they want to do.
If they really pursue whatthey like their passions,
but also not to pay toomuch attention to trivial
things, to follow their ownpath. It might be hard sometimes,
but find good mentors and findUnderstood. Understood. Yeah.

(45:35):
And find good teams to work in.
Well, we're gonna have toleave it there. Anamaria Berea,
thank you for joining me toexplore and explain some of the
great unknowns of outer space.
Thank you.
I'm George Mason, president GregoryWashington. Thanks for listening.

(45:56):
And tune in next time for moreconversations that show why we are
all together different.
If you like what youheard on this podcast,
go to podcast.gmu.edu formore of Gregory Washington's
conversations with thethought leaders, experts,
and educators who take on the grandchallenges facing our students, graduates,

(46:18):
and higher education.That's podcast.gmu.edu.