--- title: It Might Be Too Early to Find Life on Other Planets description: What if we can’t find life on other planets because we’re too early, here's how organ transplants can be more fair and more. canonical: https://time.com/4452304/it-might-be-too-early-to-find-life-on-other-planets/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-15T16:00:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:36.203Z article:section: Ideas og:title: It Might Be Too Early to Find Life on Other Planets og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4452304/it-might-be-too-early-to-find-life-on-other-planets/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: It Might Be Too Early to Find Life on Other Planets twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # It Might Be Too Early to Find Life on Other Planets by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Aug 15, 2016 4:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Aug 15, 2016 4:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**What if we can’t find life on other planets because we’re too early?**](https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2016-17) By the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics **2\.** [**Organ transplants can be more fair. Here’s how.**](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/e63a1691dae74678aa2867d316ebf8a3/organ-network-mapping-path-more-fair-liver-transplants) By Lauran Neergaard at the AP **3\.** [**Were we completely wrong about cyberwar?**](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/is-cyberwar-turning-out-to-be-very-different-from-what-we-thought-214136) By Neal Pollard and Matthew G. Devost in Politico Magazine **4\.** [**Disaster response apps still come up short. Here’s how to improve them.**](https://theconversation.com/when-disaster-response-apps-fail-63493) By Nicholas Kman in the Conversation **5\.** [**It pays to be grumpy and bad-tempered.**](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160809-why-it-pays-to-be-grumpy-and-bad-tempered) By Zaria Gorvett in BBC Future  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4452304/it-might-be-too-early-to-find-life-on-other-planets/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4452304/it-might-be-too-early-to-find-life-on-other-planets/"},"headline":"It Might Be Too Early to Find Life on Other Planets","datePublished":"2016-08-15T16:00:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:36.203Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4452304/it-might-be-too-early-to-find-life-on-other-planets/","keywords":["Innovation","Space","apps"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4452304/it-might-be-too-early-to-find-life-on-other-planets/","name":"It Might Be Too Early to Find Life on Other Planets"}}]}] ```