TECHNICAL ADVANCES DRIVING CONTACT Both the most cynical person on Earth and the world's greatest optimist could easily look at everything around them and ask: could this truly be all there is in the universe? Whatever your reason for posing the question, you may have an answer sooner than you think — and that answer is likely to be "no." Science writer and comedian Ben Miller posits in his book The Aliens Are Coming! The Extraordinary Science Behind Our Search for Life in the Universe that one of the most powerful forces shaping science today is the growing search for life in the universe fueled by the belief that we are not alone. He believes that because of our current technologies, we'll know about life on the Earth-like planets closest to us within the next ten years. It's easy to see why he thinks so. Scientists have identified an exoplanet that they've described as the best candidate for life as we know it — perhaps an even more important a target for planet