If we ever find aliens, they'll be thirsty.
We all know that people need water to live, but the universe is a big place, which raises questions: Would alien life need water, too? And how much water is out there, anyway? To get a broader perspective, GOOD talked with Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI).GOOD: Why is water so important for life?Seth Shostak: Imagine taking your old chemistry set out and dumping it onto the living-room floor. Not much happens, except maybe your mom gets upset. Now, if you bring over a pail of water and throw it on top, then something will happen. Water is great for life for that very straightforward reason: It's good for chemistry.G: Couldn't you just use another liquid?SS: Yeah, in principle. But if you actually look at the kind of things that would be liquid, and that might be on planets you can imagine, water still comes out as the best fit. One of the reasons for that is that water is liquid over a very wide range of temperatures: 33 degrees to 212 degrees Fahrenheit. These other liquids you might find-ammonia, methane, those sorts of things, maybe even liquid hydrogen on the surface of Jupiter if you had that-they're only liquid in a very small and unfortunate range of temperatures.G: So how much water is there in the universe?SS: Hydrogen is the number one element in the universe. Three-quarters of the universe by weight is hydrogen. And the third most popular element in the entire cosmos is oxygen. There's a lot of H and a lot of O, and when they get together you get water. So there's a lot of water out there.G: Do we know where it is?SS: Water vapor-you'll probably find that in any planet that has an atmosphere. But liquid water? If you send Bruce Willis to Mars with a bunch of roughnecks and have them drill down a couple hundred feet-maybe not even that far-you'd probably find liquid water. We're not 100 percent sure, but that's one place it's likely to be. The second place is Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. It's covered in ice. But the odds are probably 90 percent that if you send a probe or something and melt it through the hard ice that's covering that moon, you'd find a big ocean underneath with as much water in it as the Atlantic and the Pacific added together times two.Callisto and Ganymede, both additional moons of Jupiter, probably have liquid water oceans. Even Titan might have some liquid water occasionally. Another moon of Saturn, called Enceladus, has these big geysers coming out. So there's some water. In the atmosphere of Venus-if you get away from the surface, which is really much too toasty for life, and go up a couple of miles where it gets cooler-maybe there are some water droplets up there.So there are seven other worlds just in our solar system that might have liquid water. And water must be pretty common in interstellar space, too, by the way just molecules hanging around. So you expect a lot of water. There's no shortage of water. Except, you know, in Israel."There's a lot of H and a lot of O, and when they get together you get water. So there's a lot of water out there."G: And San Diego, among other places. Can you imagine life without water?SS: Well, it's hard. There are people who have imagined life without water because in the end they say, what is life, really? The answer to that question is "we don't know." There's no good definition of life. And every 10th grader would disagree with you because they've read their biology textbooks and they'd say, "You know, life: It has a metabolism, so it takes food and it excretes something and it reproduces and it moves around," and they've got this little laundry list of things. But the fact is, you can always find exceptions. Fire reproduces but it's not alive. Mules don't reproduce but they are alive. So we don't really know what life is. And people have been ingenious in thinking of ways in which we could have organized activity that everyone would say was life even though there wasn't any water involved.But I think that if we find extraterrestrial intelligence, there's a very big chance that that's not biological at all. The reason is that once a civilization invents radio, and we can find it with our SETI experiments, within 100, 200, 300 years, it creates artificial intelligence.In terms of the great scheme of things, that's essentially right after you invent radio. It just seems statistically very likely, if you pick up a signal, that it's coming from a society that has already gone through that quick stage, and has moved on to artificial intelligence. And if you have artificial intelligence, maybe you don't need liquid water anymore. My computer doesn't need liquid water. In fact, it doesn't even like liquid water. I put it in the bathtub and it refuses to function.
A young girl plays with a magnifying glass during a fiel tripCanva
A young girl feeds a cow Canva
Reddit commentReddit | u/AmbitiousPirate5159 
Young students get on the bus for a field tripCanva
Traffic sign.Image via 
Family shopping and single man ironing.Image via 
Multicultural young people having fun with a mobile phone.Image via 
Looking at a complicated market.Image via 
Ultrasound of human baby.Image via 
IVF animated process.Image via 
A couple speaks with a fertility professional.Image via 
Why do some folks use social media but don't engage?
Psychologist says people who never comment on social media share these 5 positive traits
For over 20 years, social media has developed into a staple in many people’s day-to-day lives. Whether it’s to keep in communication with friends and family, following the thoughts of celebrities, or watching cat videos while sipping your morning coffee, there seem to be two types of social media users: commenters and lurkers.
The term “lurker” sounds equally mysterious and insidious, with some social media users writing them off as non-participants at best or voyeurs at worst. However, mindfulness expert Lachlan Brown believes these non-commenters have some very psychologically positive and healthy traits. Let’s take a look at how each one of these traits could be beneficial and see how fruitful lurking might be even though it can drive content creators crazy.
1. Cautious about vulnerability
Consciously or not, making a post online or commenting on one puts you and your words out there. It’s a statement that everyone can see, even if it’s as simple as clicking “like.” Doing so opens yourself up to judgment, with all the good, bad, and potential misinterpretation that comes with it. Non-commenters would rather not open themselves up to that.
These silent users are connected to a concept of self-protection by simply not engaging. By just scrolling past posts or just reading/watching them without commentary, they’re preventing themselves from any downsides of sharing an opinion such as rejection, misunderstanding, or embarrassment. They also have more control on how much of themselves they’re willing to reveal to the general public, and tend to be more open face-to-face or during one-on-one/one-on-few private chats or DMs. This can be seen as a healthy boundary and prevents unnecessary exposure.
Considering many comment sections, especially involving political topics, are meant to stir negative emotional responses to increase engagement, being extra mindful about where, when, and what you comment might not be a bad idea. They might not even take the engagement bait at all. Or if they see a friend of theirs post something vulnerable, they feel more motivated to engage with them personally one-on-one rather than use social media to publicly check in on them.
2. Analytical and reflective mindset
How many times have you gone onto Reddit, YouTube, or any other site and just skimmed past comments that are just different versions of “yes, and,” “no, but,” or “yes, but”? Or the ever insightful, formerly popular comment “First!” in a thread? These silent browsers lean against adding to such noise unless they have some valid and thoughtful contribution (if they bother to comment period).
These non-posters are likely wired on reflective thinking rather than their initial intuition. Not to say that all those who comment aren’t thoughtful, but many tend to react quickly and comment based on their initial feelings rather than absorbing the information, thinking it over, researching or testing their belief, and then posting it. For "lurkers," it could by their very nature to just do all of that and not post it at all, or share their thoughts and findings privately with a friend. All in all, it’s a preference of substance over speed.
3. High sense of self-awareness
Carried over from the first two listed traits, these silent social media users incorporate their concern over their vulnerability and their reflective mindset into digital self-awareness. They know what triggers responses out of them and what causes them to engage in impulsive behavior. It could be that they have engaged with a troll in the past and felt foolish. Or that they just felt sad after a post or got into an unnecessary argument that impacted them offline. By knowing themselves and seeing what’s being discussed, they choose to weigh their words carefully or just not participate at all. It’s a form of self-preservation through restraint.
4. Prefer to observe rather than perform
Some folks treat social media as information, entertainment, or a mix of both, and commenting can feel like they’re yelling at the TV, clapping alone in a movie theater when the credits roll, or yelling “That’s not true!” to a news anchor that will never hear them. But contrary to that, social media is a place where those yells, claps, and accusations can be seen and get a response. By its design, social media is considered by experts and the media as performative, regardless of whether it is positive or negative. Taking all of the previously mentioned traits into account, one can see why they would prefer to “observe the play” rather than get up on the stage of Facebook or X.
On top of that, these non-commenters could be using social media differently than those who choose to fully engage with it. Using this type of navigation, there may be nothing for them to comment about. Some commenters are even vying for this for their mental health. There are articles about how to better curate your social media feeds and manipulate algorithms to create a better social media experience to avoid unnecessary conflict or mentally tiring debate.
If you go on a blocking spree on all of your accounts and just follow the posters that boost you, it could turn your social media into a nice part of your routine as you mainly engage with others face-to-face or privately. In terms of commenting, if your curated Instagram is just following cute dogs and all you have to offer for a comment is “cute dog,” you might just enjoy the picture and then move on with your day rather than join in the noise. These non-commenters aren’t in the show and they’re fine with it.
5. Less motivated by social validation
The last trait that Brown showcases is that social media users who browse without posting tend to be independent from external validation, at least online. Social media is built to grow through feedback loops such as awarding likes, shares, and reposts of your content along with notifications letting you know that a new person follows you or wants to connect. This can lead many people to connect their activity on social media with their sense of self worth, especially with adolescents who are still figuring out their place in the world and have still-developing brains.
Engaging in social media via likes, shares, comments, and posts rewards our brains by having them release dopamine, which makes us feel good and can easily become addictive. For whatever reason, non-commenters don’t rely on social media as a means to gauge their social capital or self worth. This doesn’t make them better than those who do. While some non-commenters could have healthier ways to boost their self worth or release dopamine into their systems, many get that validation from equally unhealthy sources offline. That said, many non-commenters’ silence could be a display of independence and self confidence.
Whether you frequently comment online or don’t, it’s good to understand why you do or don’t. Analyzing your habits can help you determine whether your online engagement is healthy, or needs to be tweaked. With that information, you can then create a healthy social media experience that works for you.