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"Life, as we know it."

In recent years, some members of the scientific community have begun to realize that this oft-repeated phrase encapsulates a concept that appears to have been limiting modern efforts to recognize signs of extraterrestrial life, both intelligent and primitive: our search efforts tend to focus on what is familiar to us, as opposed to our keeping an eye out for something that might be truly alien. Toward that end, a recently-published study has proposed that our inherent bias towards seeking the familiar may have been blinding us to evidence that has been staring us in the face all along.
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The United States Geological Survey has confirmed that a bright meteor that broke up over the Detroit area on the evening of January 16 caused a 2.0 magnitude earthquake in Michigan. The meteorite fell about five miles (8 kilometers) from the village of New Haven.

"After reviewing several observational datasets, the NWS can confirm the flash and boom was NOT thunder or lightning, but instead a likely meteor," tweeted the Detroit’s National Weather Service office, in response to social media activity regarding the 8:08 PM event. The USGS confirmation followed shortly after the NWS tweet.
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A new study from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Tsinghua University in Beijing has found that the global warming pause that was supposed to have occurred between 1998 and 2012 didn’t actually happen. The discrepancy was apparently due to incomplete data, making it appear that worldwide temperature increases had plateaued.

"We recalculated the average global temperatures from 1998-2012 and found that the rate of global warming had continued to rise at 0.112ºC per decade instead of slowing down to 0.05ºC per decade as previously thought," explains UAF professor and atmospheric scientist Xiangdong Zhang.
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