As an astrobiologist I often get the question: What would aliens be like? By “aliens” the questioner usually means complex, animal-like beings we can communicate with in some way, implying that they would be a technologically advanced intelligent species like us.

In part one of this new series, I’ll consider whether, despite likely superficial differences in how we look, extraterrestrial civilizations would share some common behavioral patterns with humans. My sense is that they would. In fact, that was the topic of a 2010 paper by my former doctoral student, Marina Resendes de Sousa Walther-António.

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