Plurality of Worlds in 1686.

Despite the interest, there was no recorded discussion of how we might locate or contact these potential aliens until more than a century later.

Crop triangles and burning canals

Florence Raulin-Cerceau of the Alexandre Koyré Center in Paris has documented the early attempts at communication with extraterrestrial intelligence (CETI), or what is now often called active SETI.

"As early as the 19th century, inventors imagined "sky telegraph" equipment to communicate with the supposed inhabitants of the solar system’s planets," Raulin-Cerceau recently wrote with her colleague in the French magazine Pour la Science.

The first of these inventors was Carl Friedrich Gauss, the German mathematician. In the 1820s, he spoke of reflecting sunlight towards the planets with his land surveying invention, the heliotrope. He is also credited with theHigh interest in Dutch “white jersey” team from potential sponsors

The Rabobank team has already been in negotiations with “four or five” potential replacements for its name sponsor in 2013, and could be set to announce a new deal soon, wielerrevue.nl reports. The Dutch bank shocked the world of cycling on October 19th when it announced that it was pulling out of the sport, having sponsored the team since 1996. Two years ago the Dutch bank committed to the team through 2016, but cited the recent Lance Armstrong doping scandal as the final straw, and will walk away at the end of this year.



While it will no longer be called Rabobank from January 1st, 2013, contracts signed with the bank mean that there will be enough budget for the