The chances of intelligent life emerging in our Universe – and in any hypothetical ones beyond it – can be estimated by a new theoretical model which has echoes of the famous Drake Equation. This was the formula that American astronomer Dr Frank Drake came up with in the 1960s to calculate the number of detectable extraterrestrial civilisations in our Milky Way galaxy. More than 60 years on, astrophysicists led by Durham University have produced a different model which instead focuses on the conditions created by the acceleration of the Universe's expansion and the amount of stars formed.