SETI Institute

Blue Dot host Dave Schlom is joined by neuroscientist and animal intelligence advocate Dr. Lori Marino, who was recently named the 2026 winner of the Frank Drake Award by the SETI Institute. Marino was one of the first scientists to determine that bottlenose dolphins can recognize themselves in a mirror, a key test of cognitive awareness.

As a strong advocate for marine mammals and other animals, Marino guides us in a far-ranging discussion that delves into our human bias toward other creatures and how dolphins and whales have intelligence far more advanced than we previously thought!

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Blue Dot: Animal intelligence with Lori Marino Host Dave Schlom is joined by neuroscientist and animal intelligence advocate Dr. Lori Marino, who was recently named the 2026 winner of the Frank Drake Award by the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.

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What happens if scientists discover evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence? Who verifies it? Who announces it? And how would humanity respond?

Join Dr. Lauren Sgro, Dr. Lucian Walkowicz, and Dr. Chelsea Haramia as they discuss the newly updated SETI protocols and the launch of the Discovery and Futures Lab.

🖥️ Watch: https://www.facebook.com/events/1280914033924135/

SETI Live: New SETI Protocols Released If you like science, support the SETI Institute! We're a non-profit...

: A Sea of Spinning Clouds

Over the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica, winds can whip around the globe relatively unimpeded by land. Intrepid sailors termed these southern latitudes the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties on account of the strong prevailing winds.

When those winds encounter a barrier like an island, the disruption in airflow can be beautiful. One impediment, shown here, is remote Peter I Island. This ice-cloaked volcano lies at 68.86 degrees south latitude in the Bellingshausen Sea, some 400 kilometers off the coast of West Antarctica and more than 1,800 kilometers from Cape Horn, Chile.

On an austral summer day in 2026, the Landsat 8 satellite captured this image of von Kármán vortex streets downwind of the island. These counterrotating spirals form as flowing air is deflected, slows, and spins into eddies.

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

Before seeing the new science fiction movie “Disclosure Day,” journalist Matthew Rozsa reached out to some of Earth’s top experts -- including SETI Institute's Franck Marchis and Harvard's Avi Loeb -- about its underlying premise: whether or not extraterrestrial intelligence exists in the universe.

"What I learned has changed how I view not only this particular movie, but the poignant subject it semi-realistically depicts. Thanks to the scientists I interviewed and the artists who put "Disclosure Day" on the big screen, I can look at the subject of UFO sightings and feel an emotion that is increasingly rare these days — hope."

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Steven Spielberg’s 'Disclosure Day' asks the one question that could unite humanity Before seeing the new science fiction movie “Disclosure Day,” I reached out to some of Earth’s top experts about its underlying premise — that is, whether or not extraterrestrial intelligence exists in the universe.What I learned has changed how I view not only this particular movie, but the...

CETI, SETI, And Seismology Synergies: AI Model Hears Whale Calls In Seismic Data - Astrobiology Researchers repurposed an AI model designed for visual identification tasks to detect Bryde’s whale calls contained with seismic data collected in the South China Sea.

Big Picture Science Radio Show - Skeptic Check: Disclosure Day

The latest Hollywood romp through the world of aliens has landed in theaters. Steven Spielberg’s movie Disclosure Day suggests that our government has been hiding a cache of evidence about alien visitation that spans decades. It’s fun fiction, but does it mesh with reality? Officials have made a series of public disclosures containing information about the government’s UAP program over the years, releasing massive amounts of declassified documents along with audio and video files. Will the most recent data dump finally provide evidence that aliens are here? We look at the extended history of the public's desire to believe in extraterrestrial visitation, as well as the scientific efforts to detect intelligent or microbial life on other worlds.

Listen here: https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-disclosure-day

: Big and Small Before Rings

At first glance, it looks as though Saturn's icy moon Rhea towers over tiny Epimetheus against a breathtaking backdrop of rings and cloud tops. In reality, the two worlds are separated by hundreds of thousands of kilometers, creating a celestial illusion captured by the Cassini spacecraft in 2010.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/CICLOPS