Ancient Spiral Galaxy Found in the Great Cosmic Void to a Beacon at Milky Way Center?

Today’s stories include: The search for repetitive signals from the Milky Way's Center and The JWST reveals the earliest complex organic molecules in the universe

Isolated Spiral Galaxy Found in the Great Cosmic Void. The loneliest galaxy in the known Universe--With no other galaxies in its vicinity for ~100 million light-years in all directions, Galaxy MCG+01-02-015 is as isolated and lonely as a galaxy can be, reports Big Think.

Is there a rotating beacon at the Milky Way Center? Radio searches for extraterrestrial intelligence have mainly targeted the discovery of narrowband continuous-wave beacons and artificially dispersed broadband bursts. Periodic pulse trains offer an energetically efficient means of interstellar transmission. A rotating beacon at the Galactic Center (GC), in particular, would be highly advantageous for galaxy-wide communications, reports IOP Science. 

Alien hunters turn their attention to the heart of the Milky Way, reports Interesting Engineering. --A team of researchers from Cornell University and the SETI Institute has developed a new technique to hunt for repetitive signals from the middle of the Milky Way.

James Webb Space Telescope spies earliest complex organic molecules in the universe, reports Charles Q. Choi for Space.com. The chemicals reside within a galaxy that formed when the universe was about 10% of its current age.

Intelligent brains take longer to solve difficult problems, reports the Berlin Institute of Health. " In personalized brain simulations of the 650 participants, the researchers could determine that brains with reduced synchrony between brain areas literally “jump to conclusions” when making decisions, rather than waiting until upstream brain regions could complete the processing steps needed to solve the problem.

Why haven't aliens contacted Earth? New Fermi Paradox analysis suggests we're not that interesting yet, reports Paul Sutter for Space.com. "With a multitude of worlds to potentially study, alien civilizations would likely wait for one to start broadcasting their presence before sending a probe. So, if we wait a few hundred or a few thousand years, somebody might come knocking."

Preparing for an AI Apocalypse Is As Preposterous As Preparing for an Alien Invasion, reports the Center for Data Innovation. "Several AI industry leaders and researchers signed an outlandish statement this week claiming AI systems pose an existential risk to humanity and urging policymakers to prepare for them with the same urgency they give nuclear war and pandemics."

BBC on UFOs: Five revelations from Nasa's public meeting. ""We have 50 to 100-ish new reports each month," said Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), part of the US Defense Department. But he said the number of those sightings which are "possibly really anomalous" are 2% to 5% of the total database."

Curated by The Galaxy Report editorial staff.