NASA scientists propose new 'alien life evidence' scale

As the search for extraterrestrial life heats up, scientists may need to step up their reporting game a bit. Researchers should report evidence for alien life on a scale similar to the technological readiness level scale commonly used to assess the readiness of spaceflight components, a new paper argues. The goal is to make the search for life less "binary" — life or no life — and to express it more accurately in terms of agreed-upon scientific uncertainty.

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