Newton's Cradle

Well, its Wednesday and the weather is dull. For some reason I can't seem to find any inspiration for a blip, so I have to turn to my favourite subject....science.

They seem to have discovered a planet 20 light years away that is sitting in the "Goldilocks zone" - the ideal distance from their sun to possibly support life (not too hot, and not too cold). They say that very soon, we will develop telescopes that will be able to detect water on the surface of far-away worlds, and from that we will be able to infer the real possibility of some other life in the universe.
I remember, a long time ago, I was pacing up and down at home in the wee small hours of the morning with a small howling baby over my shoulder (as you do), and on the telly was an Open University program. The program was about a mathematician who had constructed a complex formula to calculate how much life (apart from us) there actually was in the universe. This calculation ended by being multiplied by a varaible that has a present value of zero. So the product of this exercise was zero. In other words, we are alone.
However, if we find just one example of other life anywhere - even microbes, this variable will change to 1.
The product of the formula will then be billions of billions.

So, this could be good news (unless they are Daleks)

As far as the photo goes, I'm quite pleased I was able to make the breast of a bad job....