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Vice Blog

The thankless search for intelligence out there... somewhere

Adora Svitak is a child genius. Not one of those "I'm also a little bit insane" child geniuses like this kid, but one of those straight and narrow child prodigy types. The precocious little 12-year-old learned to read at three, published her first novel at seven, and has even been declared "the most clever child in the world". Following this natural upward progression, Adora is now the host of VBS's brand spanking new Motherboard series.

In her first assignment, Adora ventures to the HQ of SETI – a controversial experimental institute that attempts to locate alien life-forms through detection of radio transmissions emanating from space. After trying for 50 years, they haven't found anything conclusive yet. According to SETI astronomer Jill Tarter, the SETI search is "the equivalent of thinking of all of the oceans on the earth and trying to search the oceans to see if there is fish in the oceans by taking a single 8 ounce glass and dumping it in the ocean and looking to see if you get a result". However, Jill also mentions that "the one thing that nature left out for you and I is a third hand and a pouch… I could always use a third hand. And a pouch comes in real handy".

Check out the full video here.