Standard Life Investments becomes first Worldwide Partner in Ryder Cup history

The 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles will welcome the first designated Worldwide Partner in the event's history following an agreement between Standard Life Investments, Ryder Cup Europe and the PGA of America that will see the global asset management company become a Worldwide Partner to both the 2014 and 2016 Ryder Cups.

Never before has a company partnered with The Ryder Cup on both sides of the Atlantic, with the new ground-breaking agreement enabling Standard Life Investments to promote and market its association with The Ryder Cup on a truly global scale.

With a potential daily TV audience of 500 million people across 183 countries, The Ryder Cup has evolved into one of the sport's most valuable and prestigious global brands, making it the perfect partner for a dynamic company such as Standard Life Investments.

Keith Skeoch, CEO, Standard Life Investments, said: "Standard Life Investments is thrilled to become the first Worldwide Partner of The Ryder Cup. This sponsorship complements our reputation as a leading global asset manager with strong performance and a distinctive team culture. It is an integral part of our long-term brand building strategy and is a perfect match in terms of our heritage, client base and strong team ethos."

Pete Bevacqua, Chief Executive Officer of the PGA of America, said: "We are delighted to welcome Standard Life Investments as a Worldwide Partner to both the 2014 and 2016 Ryder Cups in what is an historical agreement.

"We believe The Ryder Cup is among the most valuable sponsorship investments in sport and are confident that Standard Life Investments will reap tremendous value from their Worldwide Partnership on both sides of the Atlantic.

"This announcement follows the launch of the unified Ryder Cup global brand identity and the stated aim of Ryder Cup Europe and the PGA of America to secure global partnerships going forward."

Richard Hills, Europe's Ryder Cup Director, added: "As a company, with a strong global reach and Scottish heritage, Standard Life Investments share our commitment to teamwork and helping people achieve their full potential.

"We look forward to working closely with the Standard Life Investments team in delivering a world class Ryder Cup at The Gleneagles Hotel; a Ryder Cup that will create a positive and long lasting legacy for the game in the 'Home of Golf'."

Notes on Standard Life Investments / Standard Life
With assets under management of £163.4bn ($263.9bn) Standard Life Investments is one of Europe's major investment houses. Employing over 1,000 people and headquartered in Edinburgh, Standard Life Investments maintains offices in a number of locations around the globe including Boston, Hong Kong, London, Beijing, Montreal, Sydney, Dublin, Paris and Seoul. In January 2012 Standard Life Investments teamed up with John Hancock Mutual Funds to make its award-winning Global Absolute Return Strategies (GARS) Fund available to the United States retail marketplace.

Standard Life Investments was launched as an investment management company in 1998. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Life Investments (Holdings) Limited, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Life plc. With a reputation for innovation in pursuit of client investment objectives Standard Life Investments' capabilities span equities, bonds, real estate, private equity, multi-asset solutions, fund-of-funds and absolute return strategies.

Established in 1825, Standard Life is a leading provider of long term savings and investments to around 6 million customers worldwide. Headquartered in Edinburgh, Standard Life has around 9,000 employees internationally.

The Standard Life group includes savings and investments businesses, which operate across its UK, Canadian and European markets; corporate pensions and benefits businesses in the UK and Canada; and its Chinese and Indian Joint Venture businesses. The Group has total assets under administration of over £211bn ($342bn).

Standard Life plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange and has approximately 1.5 million individual shareholders in over 50 countries around the world. It is also listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, ranking it among the top 10% of sustainable companies in the world. All figures at 30 September 2012

Standard Life Investments becomes first Worldwide Partner in Ryder Cup history

The 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles will welcome the first designated Worldwide Partner in the event's history following an agreement between Standard Life Investments, Ryder Cup Europe and the PGA of America that will see the global asset management company become a Worldwide Partner to both the 2014 and 2016 Ryder Cups.

Never before has a company partnered with The Ryder Cup on both sides of the Atlantic, with the new ground-breaking agreement enabling Standard Life Investments to promote and market its association with The Ryder Cup on a truly global scale.

With a potential daily TV audience of 500 million people across 183 countries, The Ryder Cup has evolved into one of the sport's most valuable and prestigious global brands, making it the perfect partner for a dynamic company such as Standard Life Investments.

Keith Skeoch, CEO, Standard Life Investments, said: "Standard Life Investments is thrilled to become the first Worldwide Partner of The Ryder Cup. This sponsorship complements our reputation as a leading global asset manager with strong performance and a distinctive team culture. It is an integral part of our long-term brand building strategy and is a perfect match in terms of our heritage, client base and strong team ethos."

Pete Bevacqua, Chief Executive Officer of the PGA of America, said: "We are delighted to welcome Standard Life Investments as a Worldwide Partner to both the 2014 and 2016 Ryder Cups in what is an historical agreement.

"We believe The Ryder Cup is among the most valuable sponsorship investments in sport and are confident that Standard Life Investments will reap tremendous value from their Worldwide Partnership on both sides of the Atlantic.

"This announcement follows the launch of the unified Ryder Cup global brand identity and the stated aim of Ryder Cup Europe and the PGA of America to secure global partnerships going forward."

Richard Hills, Europe's Ryder Cup Director, added: "As a company, with a strong global reach and Scottish heritage, Standard Life Investments share our commitment to teamwork and helping people achieve their full potential.

"We look forward to working closely with the Standard Life Investments team in delivering a world class Ryder Cup at The Gleneagles Hotel; a Ryder Cup that will create a positive and long lasting legacy for the game in the 'Home of Golf'."

Notes on Standard Life Investments / Standard Life

With assets under management of £163.4bn ($263.9bn) Standard Life Investments is one of Europe's major investment houses. Employing over 1,000 people and headquartered in Edinburgh, Standard Life Investments maintains offices in a number of locations around the globe including Boston, Hong Kong, London, Beijing, Montreal, Sydney, Dublin, Paris and Seoul. In January 2012 Standard Life Investments teamed up with John Hancock Mutual Funds to make its award-winning Global Absolute Return Strategies (GARS) Fund available to the United States retail marketplace.

Standard Life Investments was launched as an investment management company in 1998. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Life Investments (Holdings) Limited, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Life plc. With a reputation for innovation in pursuit of client investment objectives Standard Life Investments' capabilities span equities, bonds, real estate, private equity, multi-asset solutions, fund-of-funds and absolute return strategies.

Established in 1825, Standard Life is a leading provider of long term savings and investments to around 6 million customers worldwide. Headquartered in Edinburgh, Standard Life has around 9,000 employees internationally.

The Standard Life group includes savings and investments businesses, which operate across its UK, Canadian and European markets; corporate pensions and benefits businesses in the UK and Canada; and its Chinese and Indian Joint Venture businesses. The Group has total assets under administration of over £211bn ($342bn).

Standard Life plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange and has approximately 1.5 million individual shareholders in over 50 countries around the world. It is also listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, ranking it among the top 10% of sustainable companies in the world. All figures at 30 September 2012

Could Life Have Evolved on Mars Before Earth?

The discovery that ancient Mars could have supported microbes raises the tantalizing possibility that life may have evolved on the Red Planet before it took root on Earth.

New observations by NASA's Curiosity rover suggest that microbial life could have survived on Mars in the distant past, when the Red Planet was a warmer and wetter place, scientists announced Tuesday (March 12).

It's unclear exactly how long ago Mars' habitability window opened up, researchers said. But the timing may be comparable to that of Earth, where life first appeared around 3.8 billion years ago.

"We're talking about older than 3 billion years ago, and we're probably looking at a situation where, plus or minus a couple hundred million years, it's about the time that we start seeing the first record of life preserved on Earth," Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger, of Caltech in Pasadena, said during a press conference Tuesday.

The Curiosity team's conclusions are based on the rover's study of material collected from the interior of a Martian rock. Last month, Curiosity used its hammering drill to bore 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) into part of a Red Planet outcrop dubbed "John Klein" — deeper than any Mars robot had ever gone before.

Curiosity's analyses show that the John Klein area was once a benign aqueous environment, such as a neutral-pH lake, researchers said. Further, the rover's instruments detected many of the chemical ingredients necessary for life as we know it, including sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon.

Mission scientists aren't claiming that life has ever existed on the Red Planet. They have found no signs of Martian microbes, which is no surprise since the car-size Curiosity rover carries no life-detection instruments among its scientific gear.

But the advanced age of the John Klein deposits does open the door to some interesting speculation. If life ever flourished on Mars — a very big if — did it predate life on Earth? And if so, could Earth life trace its lineage back to Mars?

Some microbes are incredibly hardy, after all, and may be able to survive an interplanetary journey after being blasted off their home world by an asteroid impact. And orbital dynamics show that it's much easier for rocks to travel from Mars to Earth than the other way around.

These are questions scientists and laypeople alike will undoubtedly ask if a future mission ever does find conclusive evidence of life on Mars. But for now, Curiosity will continue rolling through its Gale Crater landing site, helping scientists learn more about the Red Planet and its history.

"Mars has written its autobiography in the rocks of Gale Crater, and we've just started deciphering that story," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington.

Valerie Harper: 'I'm Living A Normal Life' Following Brain Cancer Diagnosis

Valerie Harper is continuing to live her life to the fullest after going public with her diagnosis of terminal brain cancer.

The TV icon visited Access Hollywood Live on Tuesday, where she chatted with Billy Bush and Kit Hoover about her fight to continue living.

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"I'm feeling good and I wanted people to see that and to know that... and telling people, 'Don't go to the funeral before the day of the funeral. Live each day, each moment even,'" Valerie, 73, said.
The Emmy-winning actress was diagnosed with leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, a rare form of cancer that affects the fluid-filled membrane surrounding the brain, in January.

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"I have great doctors and I have a wonderful, wonderful husband, who has been there just incredibly," she continued, referring to her spouse, husband Tony Cacciotti. "I thought I need to share this now - and it's in the brain area - and I didn't want to start having problems with speech or anything else."

The actress is using her illness as an opportunity to help others facing medical scares.

"I want [the public] to know that I'm there and I'm fighting this thing and that death is a part of life and it's almost a privilege or advantage to know because a lot of us push death away, don't look at it, don't want to think about it... You shouldn't spend time morosely looking at it, but you do have to face it," she explained. "None of us are getting out of this alive, we are all terminal. It just depends when."

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Valerie has been busy tying up the loose ends in her life, while still enjoying her time with her loved ones.
"I'm cleaning out closets, I'm getting rid of junk. I took the Emmys out of the garage and brought them into the house to make sure I know where they were. I'm going to the movies, I'm cooking dinner, I'm running, I'm lifting weights, I'm doing everything I did because of [my] wonderful team [of doctors]," she continued.
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"I'm living a normal life and the new era of cancer is not, 'Kill the cells! Kill the cells!' and you ruin the person, it's new. It's managing the cancer... You can die with cancer, but not of it, that's really true," Valerie said.

The actress and author of "I, Rohda" is even eyeing job offers.
"I've been asked to do some jobs, which is wonderful and I would be pleased to do it," she said.
Despite her extremely positive outlook, Valerie admitted that she's still facing her fears daily.

"I get terrified at night sometimes... and if I feel like crying, I do. If I feel like walking around the house taking deep breaths, I do," she said. "It's not crazy to be afraid of death, no one wants to embrace it, I'm just saying, don't let your fear of death rob your living now. That's your real key, stay in the moment the best you can."

One of her greatest fears is leaving behind husband Tony, whom she has been married to since 1987.
"He is the love of my life and I don't want to leave him, but I have to face what may be ahead," she told Billy and Kit. "He's my beloved, beloved heart, he's just my heart."

Edinburgh-based Standard Life profits' surge prompts payout

Shareholders will benefit from a £302m windfall after the Edinburgh-based business reported £286m in UK pre-tax operating profits, up from £156m.

Overall, the group made an operating profit of £900m, up from £544, the previous year.

It also announced it will pay a special dividend of 12.8p per share, on top of a regular payout of 14.7p.

The profits' surge follows a year in which the firm shed more than 100 jobs as part of a restructuring process.

The move was in response to regulatory changes such as pensions reform and the retail distribution review (RDR).

Increased profitability
Despite Standard Life's strong performance in the UK in 2011, the operating profit before tax for the rest of Europe was down at £37m, compared with £46m the previous year.

In the UK we are ready to benefit from the significant changes to the market and the increased customer need for savings products”

Chief executive David Nish said: "Standard Life has delivered a substantial increase in profitability and has a strong capital position supporting increased dividends for our shareholders.

"We have been building strong positions in our core markets. In the UK we are ready to benefit from the significant changes to the market and the increased customer need for savings products.

"In Standard Life Investments we have one of the world's leading asset managers whose reach and scale is increasingly global."

The 65% increase in profits came despite a significant fall in UK company pension net inflows from £2bn to £1.2bn a year, as firms put off decisions ahead of the launch of a scheme to automatically place workers in company pensions.

Pensions boost
It said employers were delaying changes to their pension plans due to the phased launch of auto-enrolment, which began on 1 October 2012 and will see up to 10 million people placed in workplace pensions, starting with the largest firms and gradually applying to other firms over the next six years.

Standard Life said it expected a significant boost from the scheme over the years ahead, forecasting a potential 400,000 extra savers.

Mr Nish said: "We've got 35,000 corporate clients, we're transitioning 300 during this year, so from our view point auto-enrolment is a very positive driver of our business."

From baseball dreams to bloody coups: The dramatic life of Hugo Chávez

Hugo Chávez’s life—and now his death—was a story straight out of Hollywood.
Chávez could not depart quietly from the presidency of Venezuela and slip into an easy retirement like most leaders. That would have been too mundane.
No, he had to have a dramatic exit, battling cancer for nearly two years, shuttling from Caracas to Havana for treatment, virtually disappearing from public view in the last weeks of his life.

It was the final chapter of what even his enemies must admit was an extraordinary life, from organizing a clandestine cell in the military for a decade to running for president against a former Miss Universe to calling George W. Bush “the devil” at the United Nations.

Chávez was literally born in a mud hut in the Great Plains of Venezuela. He was so poor as a child that the grandmother who raised him made him sell sweets at school.

As a boy, he dreamed of becoming a major league baseball player in the United States. He gained entrance to a prestigious military academy—mainly because he thought he’d have a better chance of getting discovered by scouts in Caracas than in rural Venezuela.

But at the academy he discovered Simon Bolivar, the “Liberator” and Venezuelan native son who freed six South American countries from Spanish rule and became Chávez’s inspiration for creating a more just Venezuela and Latin America.

Venezuela sat atop some of the world’s largest oil reserves, yet most of the population was mired in poverty. A tiny elite monopolized the oil money.
Incensed, Chávez formed a secret organization inside the military of like-minded soldiers. By day he was a soldier, by night he was a conspirator.
The turning point came in 1989 when the government massacred hundreds if not several thousand people after riots broke out over an International Monetary Fund, neo-liberal “shock package.” Chávez and his cohorts decided to strike back.

On Feb. 4, 1992, they launched a coup against the government of Carlos Andres Perez. The putsch failed, but Chávez became an instant hero to millions of poor people.

He went to jail for two years, got pardoned and spent a couple of years criss-crossing the country. By 1997, he was running for president. His main opponent at first was former Miss Universe Irene Saez. The campaign was dubbed “the beauty and the beast.”

In December 1998, Chávez easily won the presidency.
His presidency was equally dramatic, a series of life-and-death roller coaster rides. In April 2002, he was the object of a coup attempt himself. After bloody street confrontations by clashing demonstrations, he was essentially kidnapped by military coup leaders and disappeared from public view for two days. The president was missing—his countrymen did not know where he was.
But loyalists launched a counter-coup, snatched Chávez from a Caribbean island where he was being held, and flew him back to Caracas on a helicopter in the middle of the night.

As the chopper’s lights broke through the mist in the sky at close to 3 am, thousands of his supporters who had surrounded the presidential palace for two days waiting and hoping for his return broke into cheers and then became delirious.

They had feared Chávez was going to be executed during the coup, and by his account he nearly was. Now, on the third day, it was as if he had risen from the dead.

To his supporters, it was like a miracle. This time around, in his battle against cancer, Chávez could not produce another one.

Joachim Schorr, PhD, Named Chief Scientific Officer at Caris Life Sciences

Caris Life Sciences®, a leading biosciences company focused on fulfilling the promise of personalized medicine, announced today that it has named Joachim Schorr, PhD, as its Chief Scientific Officer. He joins Caris in this role after working as a consultant with the company during the past year. In this expanded capacity, Dr. Schorr's extensive expertise in the molecular sciences arena will help to shape and advance Caris' research and development strategy.
"Having worked closely with Caris Life Sciences in 2012 as Senior Scientific Advisor, I have seen firsthand the world-class work being done every day at Caris to advance innovation in the field of personalized medicine," said Dr. Schorr. "

Given our position as the emerging standard for cancer tumor profiling with the Molecular Intelligence Service, I am convinced that Caris is set to transform cancer diagnosis and patient care through its blood-based Carisome platform. I am excited to be part of this scientific paradigm shift."
Before joining Caris, Dr. Schorr held various leadership positions at QIAGEN N.V., the global leader in sample and assay Technologies, until April 2012. In his most recent role there, he served as Senior Vice President Global R&D and Managing Director, was a member of the Executive Committee and was responsible for research and development activities worldwide.  In addition to his expanded role as CSO for Caris, Dr. Schorr will continue to serve as a scientific consultant for QIAGEN.

During his 20-year career at QIAGEN, Dr. Schorr led the development of a global R&D function that created many new breakthrough products for use in life sciences research as well as molecular diagnostics. He also played a critical role in the successful integration of new technologies and products into the QIAGEN portfolio. In addition, he played key roles in the integrations of acquired companies, including Genovison, Operon, Artus, DxS, Digene and DxAssays.

Prior to joining QIAGEN, Dr. Schorr worked at Hoechst, the German chemical-pharmaceuticals company, and was involved in the development of an oral malaria vaccine that received the IHK research award in 1991. He was also co-founder of Coley Pharmaceuticals, EnPharma Pharmaceuticals, and QBM Cell Sciences. Dr. Schorr holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and Virology from the University of Cologne.

"The value that Joachim brings to Caris through his extensive scientific and business experiences in the industry as well as his key strategic insights have been clearly evident to our organization over this past year," said David D. Halbert, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Caris Life Sciences. "In his official capacity as Chief Scientific Officer, we look forward to Joachim making significant contributions to further advance our innovative technology platforms – platforms that will fundamentally change the way medicine is practiced. We are very pleased to officially welcome him to the Caris Life Sciences team."

Jodi Arias Sex Life: Defendant Reveals More Dirty Details

A lot of time Monday –- too much time, some might argue –- was spent by the defense questioning Jodi Arias about her sexual encounters with ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander.

Anal sex, oral sex, candy in the bedroom, were just some of the subjects covered as Arias was questioned by defense attorney Kurt Nurmi.

After numbering how many times she had anal sex prior to meeting Alexander –- approximately four times –- Arias said the first time Alexander had sex with her she had not asked for it and it hurt.

The defense has been trying to prove that Arias was humiliated and bullied by her ex-boyfriend, whom she is accused of murdering. Her lawyers say she acted in self-defense.

Asked by Nurmi if Alexander had used lubricant, Arias replied: “Not to my knowledge. I think he might of spit on his hand … it was painful.”

Nurmi asked Arias if she enjoyed it when Alexander used Tootsie Pops in their sexcapades.

"When he was using the tootsie pops on you, was it physically pleasurable to you?" Nurmi asked.

"There was some physical pleasure I guess. It wasn’t uncomfortable," Arias replied.

"What other pleasure did you derive from that?" Nurmi asked.

"His attention I guess. It sounds simple, but it was just about us. We shut the door and it was our own space and our time together. So I enjoyed that," Arias said.

Arias then testified about receiving facials from Alexander during oral sex.

"Sometimes it hurt if it got in my eyes," she said.

While the sex testimony may have been of interest to some, the momentum in the trial slowed significantly throughout Nurmi’s redirect of last week’s cross-examination.

Arias, 32, is accused of the June 4, 2008 slaying of Alexander inside his Mesa, Ariz., apartment. She faces the death penalty if convicted. Alexander was stabbed 27 times, shot twice in the face and his throat was slashed.

There was, much to the chagrin of court watchers, more recesses and sidebars than actual testimony in the case Monday.

One of the few highlights of the day was a demonstration defense attorney Kurt Nurmi had his co-council, Jennifer Willmott, participate in with Arias.

Nurmi had Willmott and Arias stand side-by-side and instructed Arias to place her arm around Willmott’s neck. Nurmi was recreating a pose seen in a photo that was previously submitted by the prosecution, in which Arias had her arm around her sister’s neck.

Prosecutor Juan Martinez had shown the jury the photo of Arias and her sister during cross-examination and pointed out Arias finger did not appear injured at the time. Martinez was attempting to show Arias finger was actually injured on June 4, 2008, the day Alexander was killed inside his Mesa, Ariz., home.


ARIAS DEMONSTRATING THE FINGER POSE: (Story Continues Below)

Nurmi then spent much of the afternoon session detailing Arias’ journal entries about her relationship and her suicideal thoughts.

The trial is scheduled to resume at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, when the re-direct of Arias will resume.

Life in the universe: Alien hunters in Edinburgh

As experts and alien hunters gather in Edinburgh on Saturday to talk ‘exoplanets’, Shân Ross finds that they are more prepared to meet ET than you might expect...

In the labyrinthine underground of corridors beneath King’s Buildings in Edinburgh is a laboratory which would be used to examine any specimen of extraterrestrial life which crashed on to Scottish soil. While the United Nations for Outer Space Affairs has a protocol in place, Professor Charles Cockell, director of the UK Centre for Astrobiology, based at the University of Edinburgh’s sprawling science complex to the south of the city, is responsible for the initial handling of any such event in Scotland. He would also be consulted by government officials on how much information is released to the public

Saturday sees a unique event – free to the public – taking place in Edinburgh, which will see Prof Cockell and a multi-disciplinary range of the UK’s leading scientists meet for the Life In the Universe – There is Life on Earth, but is There Life Out There? conference.

Among the speakers are Dr Chris Lintott of the BBC’s The Sky at Night, who recruits members of the public as “planet hunters” searching for habitable exoplanets – Earth-like planets orbiting other stars – and renowned cosmologist and mathematician Professor Sir Roger Penrose, who will reveal that he believes signals could have already been sent from a previous aeon … by some form of life which managed to manipulate black holes.

Last month’s meteorite accident which hit Russia and the potentially catastrophic asteroid which hurtled past Earth on the same day, coupled with the popularity of Brian Cox’s Stargazing Live series on BBC2, have stirred appetites for immediate answers from experts.

There has never been a more exciting time for developments, with NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope, launched in 2009, constantly sweeping the skies following the discovery of the first exoplanet in 1992. The Holy Grail now is to find one which resembles Earth in the “Goldilocks zone” – a place which, like the porridge in the fairy tale, is “not too hot” and “not too cold”, which has water and where life of some sort could be thriving. Meanwhile, NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover, currently on the red planet, is sending back data which could only be dreamt of just ten years ago.

Then, last week, space tourist and billionaire entrepreneur Dennis Tito, chair of the Inspiration Mars Foundation unveiled plans to recruit a man and woman for 501-day Mars fly-by mission to be launched in 2018.

Professor John Brown, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, who has organised the event along with Edinburgh astronomy enthusiasts backed by the Institute of Physics in Scotland, The Royal Society of Edinburgh and the UK Centre for Astrobiology, said finding life elsewhere in the Universe – even microbes or fossils of long-dead ones – could cause a huge sea change in people’s outlook and religious beliefs. “It is hugely arrogant to think we are the only life the cosmos has spawned,” says Prof Brown, who is also speaking at the event. “All the scientific indicators are that it would be very strange if life has only formed and developed here.

“The discovery could be hundreds of thousands of years ahead or next week. But in my view it will happen sooner rather than later. We should prepare ourselves for that and given the level of interest, there’s no time like the present.”

Prof Cockell, whose work involves the study of life in extreme environments and the possibility of life beyond Earth, said that while he believed there was no evidence for extraterrestrial life at the moment, he did not rule it out.

“It would be staggering to find that there was nothing out there. It is perplexing we don’t see anything. Either it is too rare or can’t travel across intergalactic distances.”

Prof Cockell, who has worked at NASA, is chair of the Earth and Science Foundation which links Earth and space exploration and runs an alien-hunting night class at the university, added: “If something did happen the public would have to be made aware. There would have to be a decision on how much to tell them, but I don’t know any government who would be competent enough to hide it.”

The fascination with outer space has a long history, with the majority of “aliens” being pre-judged as aggressive and hostile.

HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) conjured up an image of aggressive Martians invading Earth who were only wiped out by their lack of resistance to microbes. Indeed, Martians continued to receive a bad press with the release of the movie Devil Girl from Mars (1954) in which a leather-clad woman from Mars, armed with a ray gun and a menacing robot, lands in a spacecraft in the Scottish Highlands to recruit virile males after a battle on the Red Planet wiped out most of the men. Clips of the unusual encounter, which now has a cult following, can be viewed on YouTube.

Dr Lintott, an astrophysicist at Oxford University, who will be giving a talk on Cosmic Environments, was one of the main driving forces behind the planethunters.org website which gets volunteers to sift through time-lapsed data from the NASA Kepler space telescope looking for any “blips” in light indicating a planet.

Kepler has already discovered nearly 3,000 potential exoplanets, with 50 found by the public. A total of 114 have been confirmed as exoplanets, with the vast majority still waiting for verification predicted to be real. While computers can deal with high-volume processing the human eye is still far advanced in pattern recognition.

Scottish scientists are at the forefront in the search for habitable exoplanets with the building of the massive £950 million European Extremely Large Telescope, some of it at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh. Billed as “one of the key astronomical facilities of the 21st century” and planned to begin operating around 2022, it will also attempt to solve two of the biggest mysteries baffling astronomers – the formation of “dark matter” and “dark energy.”

Dr Lintott said: “My background is work on the chemistry associated with star formation, but these days I run citizen workshops to investigate galaxy formation. Rocky Earth-like planets are common and we’re close to being able to say they are in the Goldilocks zone. The real acceleration has been due to Kepler, which stares at around 150,000 stars and waits for them to blink.

“If there is a repeated pattern they know there’s a planet candidate – potential alien planets. My guess is that there is life out there – the exciting thing is, we’re about to be able to test the idea.”

Dr Lintott says that as well as the search for habitable exoplanets, scientists are searching 24/7 for a signal being sent across the universe from another life form.

“The UN procedure if a repeat-pattern signal is received is to make that signal public very quickly as we would need every telescope to track it. But the real question is, ‘do we reply?’”

Speculative debate about life in outer space has been rife since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. As a finale to the conference Prof Sir Roger Penrose will talk about his research on how signals might have been sent from a previous aeon by alien life forms for us to see today.

“You could ask is there any signal we would be able to see in our aeon which indicates a signal from a previous aeon with life in it?

“I’m claiming that we actually see these things. Maybe people from a previous aeon found a way. That sounds pretty wild, but not inconceivable. The only thing I can think of is that they could somehow manipulate the motion of black holes when they run into each other.” Stranger things have happened – haven’t they?