The aliens are silent because they're dead

How is this news? I'm serious. This is essentially how evolution was taught to me some 17 years ago so I'm genuinely surprised to see an article stating this "bottleneck" as a new theory.

We exist because of a sequence of scenarios. The probability of that sequence happening elsewhere is rare but given the size and complexity of space, is likely to happen in a similar way elsewhere, at some point in time.

But it's far more likely that early-stage micro-organisms don't manage to evolve. Or other natural extinction-level events occur.

The headline, that "aliens are silent" is very silly. They're only silent in the same way that our native bacteria are silent. Most have no concept of —or capability for— local communication, let alone interplanetary communication. Then they die.

Haha I don't think humans would be the only species to survive. Its literally impossible, we are so messy and still we managed to survive for a while.