Replies to post #20 on Extraterrestrial

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Ray Kurzweil expects to be there! http://www.harrywalker.com/speakers_template.cfm?Spea_ID=504&SubcatID=160

Living Forever -- Is immortality coming in your lifetime? Medical advances, cryonics, cloning, genetic engineering, and other advances offer tantalizing promises. We'll look at the possibilities. http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?m=5

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Technological Singularity... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

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"The Singularity is Near" http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.html?flash=2

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Dialogue between Ray Kurzweil, Eric Drexler, and Robert Bradbury

What would it take to achieve successful cryonics reanimation of a fully functioning human brain, with memories intact? A conversation at the recent Alcor Conference on Extreme Life Extension between Ray Kurzweil and Eric Drexler sparked an email discussion of this question. They agreed that despite the challenges, the brain's functions and memories can be represented surprisingly compactly, suggesting that successful reanimation of the brain may be achievable.

E-mail dialogue on November 23, 2002. Published on KurzweilAI.net Dec. 3, 2002. Comments by Robert Bradbury added Jan. 15, 2003. http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0533.html

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Eric Drexler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Drexler

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/nano/planet/141.asp

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Robert Bradbury's CURRICULUM VITAE



Last Updated: July 29, 2005
Full Name: Robert John Bradbury
Born: 5 October, 1956
Contact Information:
Address: Aeiveos Corporation, PO Box 31877, Seattle, WA, 98103
Phone: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]

Education:
1974-1977 Harvard University, Applied Mathematics
1988-1991 University of Washington, Microbiology and Biochemistry
1992-2000 Attended more than 70 professional conferences on various topics including aging and anti-aging therapeutics, bioastronomy, biotechnology, cancer, computer science, demography, free radicals, genomics, gerontology, gene therapy, gravitational microlensing, MEMS, molecular nanotechnology, telescope engineering and transhumanism.
Professional Experience:
1975-1978 Programmer, Commercial Union Leasing Corporation, New York, NY
1979-1980 Development Manager, Graphics Management Systems, New York, NY
1980-1981 Consultant, Yourdon, Inc., New York, NY
1981-1983 Consultant, Time Inc., New York, NY
1981-1982 Consultant, Oracle Corporation, Menlo Park, CA
1983-1987 UNIX Development Manager, Oracle Corporation, Menlo Park, CA
1987-1988 Consultant, Oracle Corporation, Redwood City, CA
1996-1997 Founder & President, Aeiveos Sciences Group
1992-2001 Founder & President, Aeiveos Corporation
2001-2003 Founder & CEO, Robiobotics LLC

Professions: Systems Analyst, Corporate Development Manager, Researcher

Programming Languages Known: Fortran, Basic, PPL, C, Bliss, SQL, Perl, 5+ assembly languages

Long-term Objectives:

Understand the processes involved in aging and promote research and technology development to indefinitely extend the longevity of as many human minds as possible. Further, to comprehend the evolution of organisms and civilizations towards increasing complexity and determine the limits of those processes.
Society and Board Memberships (past and present):
American Association for the Advancement of Science (www.aaas.org)
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (www.ieee.org)
International Society for Optical Engineering (www.spie.org)
Gerontological Society of America (www.geron.org)
American Aging Association, Member of the Board, VP-elect (www.americanaging.org)
LifeEx Technologies, Scientific Advisor (www.LifeEx.com)
Foresight Institute, Senior Associate (www.foresight.org)
Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, Senior Associate (www.imm.org)

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

A. PUBLISHED PAPERS - Peer Reviewed

Gaziev, A. I., Podlutsky, A. Ja., Panfilov, B.M., Bradbury, R., "Dietary supplements of antioxidants reduce hprt mutant frequency in splenocytes of aging mice," Mutat Res. 338(1-6):77-86 (Oct., 1995).
Sirota, N. P., Bezlepkin V. G., Kuznetsova E. A., Lomayeva M. G., Milonova I. N., Ravin V. K., Gaziev A. I., Bradbury R. J., "Modifying effect in vivo of interferon alpha on induction and repair of lesions of DNA of lymphoid cells of gamma-irradiated mice," Radiat Res. 146(1):100-5 (Jul, 1996).
Ushakova, T., Melkonyan, H., Nikonova, L., Mudrik, N, Gogvadze, V., Zhukova, A., Gaziev, A. I., Bradbury, R., "The effect of dietary supplements on gene expression in mice tissues," Free Radic. Biol. Med. 20(3):279-84 (1996).
Gaziev, A. I., Sologub, G. R., Fomenko, L. A., Zaichkina S. I., Kosyakova, N. I., Bradbury R. J., "Carcinogenesis Effect of vitamin-antioxidant micronutrients on the frequency of spontaneous and in vitro gamma-ray-induced micronuclei in lymphocytes of donors: the age factor," Carcinogenesis 17(3):493-9 (Mar, 1996).
Ushakova, T., Melkonyan, H., Nikonova, L., Afanasyev, V., Gaziev, A. I., Mudrik N, Bradbury, R., Gogvadze V., "Modification of gene expression by dietary antioxidants in radiation-induced apoptosis of mice splenocytes," Free Radic. Biol. Med. 26(7-8):887-91 (Apr, 1999).
Cirkovic, M. M., Bradbury, R. J., "Galactic Gradients, Postbiological Evolution and the Apparent Failure of SETI," [astro-ph/0506110] (June, 2005), submitted.

B. PUBLISHED PAPERS - Non-Peer Reviewed

Bradbury, R. J., "Life at the Limits of Physical Laws", SPIE 4273-32 OSETI III (Jan 2001). [Preprint: PS format]
Bradbury, R. J., "Dyson Shells: A Retrospective", SPIE 4273-27 OSETI III (Jan 2001). [Preprint: PS format]
Bradbury, R., "Life at the Limits of Physical Laws", "Frontiers of Life" (XIIèmes Rencontres de Blois) 25 June - 1st July, 2000.

C. BOOKS & PAPERS REVIEWED:

R. A. Freitas Jr., "Microbivores: Artificial Mechanical Phagocytes using Digest and Discharge Protocol," Zyvex Publication (March 2001). [local copy]
R. A. Freitas, "Some Limits to Global Ecophagy by Biovorous Nanoreplicators with Public Policy Recommendations" (May, 2000).
Nanomedicine: Volume I: Basic Capabilities, Robert A. Freitas, Jr., Landes Bioscience (1999).
R. A. Freitas, "Respirocytes: A Mechanical Artificial Red Cell: Exploratory Design in Medical Nanotechnology" (1999).
Nanomedicine: Volume IIA: Biocompatibility, Robert A. Freitas, Jr., Landes Bioscience (1999).

D. POSTERS AND TALKS PRESENTED AT SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS:

Bradbury, R., "Life at the Limits of Physical Laws", presentation at "Frontiers of Life" (XIIèmes Rencontres de Blois) 25 June - 1st July, 2000.
Bradbury, R., "Microlensing meets SETI: Observations of evolutionary endpoints?", Microlensing 2000, Cape Town, South Africa, 21-25 February 2000.
Bradbury, R., "Dyson Shell Supercomputers as the Dominant 'Life Form' in Galaxies", Bioastronomy 99: A New Era in Bioastronomy, Kohala Coast, Hawaii, 2-6 August 1999.

E. INVITED PRESENTATIONS:

"Biotechnology & Nanomedicine: Molecular Technologies for the Extension of Life", presentation to the Medical Technology Interest Group (MTIG) of the Medical School and Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, November 6, 2000.
"Nanomedicine - Molecular Technology for the Extension of Life", Physicians CME seminar at the Valley Regional Medical Center in Brownsville, Texas, July 20, 2000.
"Genomes, Biobots and Nanobots: Implications for 21st Century Medicine", 7th International Conference on Anti-Aging and Biomedical Technologies, December 11-13, 1999.
"Genomes, Biobots and Nanobots: Implications for 21st Century Medicine", Extro4, August 7-8, 1999.
"Paths to Immortality", presentation Extro3, August 9-10, 1997.

F. MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

Circa 1978-1979, in conjunction with Forrest Howard, wrote a PDP-10 simulator that ran on a PDP-11/70 computer. This allowed the compilation of the DEC PDP-11 Fortran compiler (written in Bliss-11) on a PDP-11 (minicomputer) rather than a PDP-10 (mainframe). The simulation of a PDP-10 with 36-bit words, on a PDP-11 with 16-bit words required more than an insignificant amount of ingenuity.

Circa 1981-1983, adapted the Yourdon C-compler to several computer architectures including the IBM Series-1 and System 370 and the National Semiconductor 16000 chip.

From 1982-1988 was responsible for the adaptation of the Oracle Relational Database management system to more than 10 different computer hardware and operating system combinations. Was responsible for the development of the tools that ensured the portability of the Oracle Relational Database Management system across a variety of systems.

During 1985-1987, participated in the ANSI X3J11 committee to standardize the C programming language. Several library function specifications (memmove, memcpy) were a direct result of my contributions.

Establishing the Aeiveos Corporation Research Library Web Site (www.aeiveos.com). Since 1993, before most people had heard of the "WWW", this has been one of the largest collections of information related to aging and longevity available to researchers and the public. Development of the Aeiveos Library was terminated circa 1998 because other larger organizations (e.g. The National Library of Medicine, The Life Extension Foundation and eMedicine.com) fulfilled many of the functions the Aeiveos Library previously fulfilled.

From 1992-1995, established a number of collaborations with Russian research groups involving gene cloning, differential gene expression studies, the creation of transgenic animals for bioreactors, dietary supplement studies directed towards the reduction of DNA damage and the development of high throughput DNA sequencing devices. A patent was secured on methods for the transformation of the mammary glands of animals for the production of foreign proteins.

Founding, securing $8 million in financing for, and managing successfully through the initial startup phases, Aeiveos Sciences Group. During 1996 and 1997, ASG was the second largest company doing research in the molecular biology of aging (after Geron Corporation). The scientific advisory board for ASG included noted professionals in the field of aging and biomedical research, including Dr. Stuart Aaronson, Dr. Steven Austad, Dr. Ranajit Chakraborty, Dr. George Martin, Dr. Michael McClelland and Dr. Robert Robbins, and Dr. Jan Vijg. ASG was a pioneer in the exploration of the genetics of aging (genotyping) and studies of differential gene expression in aging. ASG ceased operations in early 1998 due to uncertainties regarding the property rights on genes derived from the human genome and the improper timing regarding the methods and scale of research required to understand and develop interventions in age-related pathologies.

From 1997-2001, developed the concepts involved in a realistic supercomputer architecture spanning solar system sized scales, constructed using molecular nanotechnology (a Matrioshka Brain). Educated scientists such as those involved in the exploration of currently unexplained astronomical phenomena and those searching for extraterrestrial civilizations regarding the probable forms that advanced technological civilizations will adopt.

From 2001-2003, developed a business plan and started Robiobotics, LLC to accomplish the development of "whole genome engineering" and attempted to obtain in excess of $10 million in private financing for this effort. Due to the poor financial markets it proved impossible to secure financing. During this period several other NIH and DOE funded companies were able to secure funding for similar purposes. It is my belief that such technologies will be necessary to address both retarding the rate of aging as well as potentially reduce the damage caused by the cryonics freezing processes.

http://www.aeiveos.com:8080/~bradbury/CV.html

[SeriousMoney]

Matrioshka Brain - Robert Bradbury

A Matrioshka Brain is a megascale structure constructed at atomic scale limits. It is essentially a Dyson Shell supercomputer, that uses all of the energy a star produces and all of the material in a solar system for "computronium". Because of their size, immense observational and computational abilities, Matrioshka Brains should have longevities at least as long as those of stars (~1014 years for smaller stars).

Whether or not Matrioshka Brains or similar structures exist in our galaxy currently is presently unknown. As discussed in the papers below, the astronomical evidence lies someplace between provocative and suggestive. Even should they not currently exist, they are worthy of further study because it is likely that humans will possess the technological capability of building one in our solar system or around nearby stars within the next century.

Some may ask how does a Matrioshka Brain differ from a Dyson Shell? The answer is that the original concept, as envisioned by Freeman Dyson, was a single layer of habitats for human beings orbiting the Sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Given the material requirements of "habitats" it is possible that a civilization may be required to construct them in such a way that the star they surround would remain visible. (This may be why anthropocentric SETI searches for Dyson Shells point their telescopes and radio receivers at visible stars. Alternatively this may just be a problem that insufficient thought has been devoted to the evolution of technological civilizations.) A Matrioshka Brain, in contrast to a Dyson Shell, is a set of nested shells (like the nested Russian Matryoshka Dolls) that surrounds a star most likely from orbits that would range from inside Mercury's to outside Neptune's in our solar system. The material requirements of its computronium are sufficiently low that there is nothing to prevent the civilization from completely harvesting all of the more useful energy produced by the star resulting in it being essentially invisible at visible wavelengths. The computronium would support advanced technological civilizations whose thought architectures and capabilities go far [really far(!)] beyond those found in human brains and humanity as they currently exist.

One way to think about Matrioshka Brains is to ask the question, "What is the highest capacity thought machine (computer) that can be constructed using the smallest scale technology (e.g. molecular nanotechnology) within a solar system?" The basis for discussing Matrioshka Brains is to adhere to generally accepted laws of physics and forego the invention of new laws (something that is required for some lines of thought in Science Fiction).

http://www.aeiveos.com:8080/~bradbury/MatrioshkaBrains/index.html

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Robert Bradbury Website... http://www.aeiveos.com:8080/~bradbury/index.html

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Robert Bradbury's Grand Unified Theory of Aging http://www.fightaging.org/archives/000071.php

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Robert Bradbury's Favorite or Memorable Quotes http://www.aeiveos.com:8080/~bradbury/quotes.html
Creation date: circa 1996
Last Modified: 11 August 2005

"But here is still more of the truth and all I’ll try to say about it.
Although long life can be a burden, mostly it is a blessing.
It gives time enough to learn,
time enough to think,
time enough not to hurry,
time enough to love."
-- Lazarus Long, in Time Enough For Love (1973) by Robert Heinlein

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-- Arthur C. Clarke

"The world needs uninhibited thinkers, not afraid of far out speculations;
it also needs conservative hard-headed engineers who can make their dreams come true."
-- Arthur C. Clarke, Chapter 1: "In the Hall of the Knights" from
1984 Spring: A Choice of Futures, Ballantine (1984)
derived from a speech at the 8th Marconi Fellowship Award, 11/6/82.

"Death is an imposition on the human race, and no longer acceptable."
-- Alan Harrington, The Immortalist (1969)

"The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying."
-- Sir Thomas Browne

There are many virtues to growing old. (long pause)
I'm just trying to think of what they are.
-- Somerset Maugham at 80

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work.
I want to achieve it through not dying."
-- Woody Allen

"Life is either a glorious adventure or nothing"
-- Helen Keller (?)

"If you do not change the direction in which you are going,
you are likely to end up where you are headed."
-- Chinese Proverb

"That which does not destroy me, makes me stronger."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

"The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones,
which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been,
into every corner of our minds."
-- John Maynard Keynes

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients
in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease."
-- Thomas A. Edison

"...(that) any general system of conveying passengers would ... go at a velocity
exceeding ten miles an hour, or thereabouts, is extremely improbable"
-- Thomas Treadgold, railway engineer (1835)

"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon."
-- D. P. Barron

"The inertia of the human mind and its resistance to innovation are most clearly demonstrated not, as one might suspect, by the ignorant mass --which is easily swayed once its imagination is caught--but by professionals with a vested interest in tradition and in the monopoly of learning. Innovation is a two-fold threat to academic mediocrities; it endangers their oracular authority, and it evokes the deeper fear that their whole laboriously constructed intellectual edifice may collapse."
-- Arthur Koestler in The Sleepwalkers

"The history of human civilisation and social development is strongly intertwined with the pervasive role of MATERIALS--
namely, the substances that are accessible to mankind and can be processed to exhibit the desired properties for making things."
-- Lawrence H. Van Vlack, author of Elements of Materials Science and Engineering

"When we die, we die - finally and completely and forever."
from The Faith of an Atheist by George Liles,
written about Cornell Biology Prof. William Provine.
"MD" Magazine, March, 1994 pg. 60

"It is impossible to make significant change by force.
The only way to make significant change is to make the thing you want to change obsolete."
-- R. Buckminster Fuller

"There is infinite hope, but not for Man."
-- Frank Kafka, Holocaust Century Fabulist
from David Zindell's Neverness, pg 1.

"If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed,
I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only
persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm."
-- Marcus Aurelius, MEDITATIONS, VI, 21 (courtesy of Chris Russo)

"Drosam pieder pasaule" (The world belongs to the brave.)
-- a Latvian proverb (courtesy of Amara Graps)

"The deterioration of the environment produced by technology is a technological problem
for which technology has found, is finding and will continue to find solutions."
-- Sir Peter Brian Medawar

"Be happy while you're living, for no matter how long you live, you're a longer time dead."
-- Scottish Proverb (courtesy of J. R. Molloy)

"Impossible is a word humans use far too often."
-- Seven of Nine (courtesy of Adam Beberg)

"The more you love, the more you can love-and the more intensely you love.
Nor is there any limit on how many you can love.
If a person had time enough, he could love all of the majority who are decent and just."
-- Robert A. Heinlein (Time Enough For Love)

"You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place."
-- Jonathan Swift (courtesy of Alan Eliasen)

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."
-- Peter F. Drucker

"Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we ourselves possess."
-- Gandalf the Grey (J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings")

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-- Robert Frost, Harper’s Magazine, December 1920

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

-- Max Plank, from the Scientific Autobiography of Max Plank

"The transfer of allegiance from one paradigm to another is a conversion experience that cannot be forced."

-- Thomas Kuhn

"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail."

-- Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)

"The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur."

-- Alfred North Whitehead

"62,400 repetitions make one truth."
-- Aldous Huxley in Brave New World

"It doesn't matter whether it is a white cat or a black cat.
As long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat."
- Deng Xiaoping

"That there's none so blind
As those who will not see."
-- The Moody Blues, I Know You're Out There Somewhere

"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal,
not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice,
but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion
and sacrifice and endurance."
-- William Faulkner, Nobel Prize acceptance speech

"The idea is to die young as late as possible."
-- Ashley Montague

"I'll Sleep when I'm dead."
-- Warren Zevon (1947-2003)

"....
Harry Stamper: What's your contingency plan?
Truman: Contingency plan?
Harry Stamper: Your backup plan. You gotta have some kind of backup plan, right?
Truman: No, we don't have a back up plan, this is, uh...
Harry Stamper: And this is the best that you c - that the government, the U.S. government could come up with? I mean, you're NASA for crying out loud, you put a man on the moon, you're geniuses! You're the guys that're thinking shit up! I'm sure you got a team of men sitting around somewhere right now just thinking shit up and somebody backing them up! You're telling me you don't have a backup plan, that these eight boy scouts right here, that is the world's hope, that's what you're telling me?
Truman: Yeah.
..."

-- Script from the movie Armageddon (~1998)

"...computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons..."
-- Popular Mechanics (March 1949)

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"On one mission, Mr. Johnston's chopper and a second Black Hawk carried six dead American soldiers, which would have been an impossible fit if their bodies had not been so broken from the bomb blasts."
-- Juliet Macur in "The Heavy Burden of Retrieving Fallen Americans in Iraq", The New York Times October 1, 2005.

--------------------------------------------------------------
WWW Quotations Sources
Thinkexist.com Quotes
Dr. Didier Müller: Murphy's Laws and Corollaries
Adam L. Beberg: Words of Wisdom
Famous quotes showing a lack of foresight from Permanent.com
William Horton, "Horseless Carriage Thinking", American Society for Information Science (8 Apr 2000).
Negative Science and "The Outlook for the Flying Machine", Essays of an Information Scientist 3:155-166 (1977)

[SeriousMoney]

Scientist earmarks planets most likely to hold alien life!
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
The Independent, Published: 20 February 2006

Astronomers have identified a star in our Milky Way galaxy that is the most likely candidate for possessing a companion planet that harbours intelligent extra-terrestrial life.

It is a sun-like star called beta CVn in the constellation Canes Venatici and it appears to possess all the necessary preconditions that would allow an advanced civilisation to flourish on a nearby planet.

The star is 26 light years away - 153 trillion miles - and it heads a shortlist of five stars that astronomer Margaret Turnbull of the Carnegie Institution in Washington believes could be the focus of fresh attempts to make contact with other intelligent beings.

Dr Turnbull selected her top five from an initial catalogue of 17,129 stars that could be "habitable stellar systems" where the physical conditions would not be too extreme to limit the evolution and development of intelligent life and its technology.

She said she made her choice purely on the characteristics of the stars themselves. "Stars are not all the same, and not all of them are like the Sun," Dr Turnbull told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in St Louis.

The first criterion is that the star had to be at least 3 billion years old, which is about the time it has taken life on Earth to evolve to its present stage. That would be long enough for companion planets to form and for complex life to develop on them. Dr Turnbull said.

Stars on the shortlist also had to be no bigger than about 1.5 times the mass of the Sun - bigger stars tend not to live long enough to produce habitable zones, she explained. Each shortlisted star also had to have enough metallic iron in its atmosphere - at least 50 per cent of the iron content of the Sun - otherwise it is unlikey that rocky planets similar to Earth would form around it.

The stars also had to be at the right stage of stellar evolution, which eliminated red giant stars or dwarf stars, which would not be suitable for complex life to survive for very long on a nearby planet.

"We are intentionally biased towards stars that are like the Sun. These are places I'd want to live if God were to put our planet around another star," Dr Turnbull said.

Jill Tarter of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) Foundation, a privately-funded attempt to detect the non-natural radio signals from advanced civilisations in space, said her organisation will now train its radio telescopes on the five shortlisted stars.

Dr Turnbull has also identified the star she believes is most likely to have a companion planet similar to the Earth where simple life could evolve because of the presence of liquid water - thought to be necessary for life.

Her top choice is epsilon Indi A, a star that is only one tenth as bright as the Sun about 11.8 light years away in the constellation Indus. It has enough intrinsic luminosity to suggest good prospects for a habitable zone but not so bright as to overwhelm attemps to take images of the planet with telescopes.

Dr Turnbull said that the shortlist of habitable zone stars with either advanced civilisations or Earth-like planets is by no means definitive but a reasonably accurate guide for other astronomers to follow.

"There are inevitable uncertainties in how we understand these stars. If I took 100 stars, it would be very difficult for me to tell which one is the best," she said.

However, there are certain conditions that would preclude the development of life and by concentrating Seti's efforts on the best candidates, scientists are more likely to get results even though no one is quite sure what will be done if astronomers ever detect a radio signal from ET.

"There is no formal policy of what to do if we discover extraterrestrial life," Dr Turnbull said.

Top five stars for planets with advanced life

* beta CVn, a sun-like star about 26 light years away in the constellation Canes Venatici

* HD 10307, another solar analogue about 42 light years away. It has almost the same mass, temperature and metallicity of the Sun. It also has a benign companion star.

* HD 211415, about half the metal content of Sun and a bit cooler, this star is just a little farther away than HD 10307.

* 18 Sco, a popular target for proposed planet searches. The star, in the constellation Scorpio, is almost an identical twin to the Sun.

* *51 Pegasus. Already famous. In 1995, Swiss astronomers reported they had detected the first planet beyond our solar system in orbit around 51 Pegasus. An American team soon verified the finding of the Jupiter-like object

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article346547.ece