Can science be used to answer the existential quandaries that haunt us? Questions like why your love life sucks? Yes, it can! The Drake Equation was used by Carl Sagan to calculate the chances of highly evolved alien life existing in our galaxy. A physicist named Peter Backus applied the Drake Equation to a more pressing issue; his own statistical chance of finding a girlfriend. Read the paper here: Why I don't have a girlfriend. The results were not encouraging. After some mathematical gymnastics, Backus concluded, "There  are  26  women  in the  UK with  whom  I  might  have  a  wonderful  relationship.   So,  on  a  given  night out in  London  there  is  a  0.000 34%  chance  of  meeting  one of  these  special  people,  about  100  times  better  than finding  an  alien  civilization  we  can  communicate  with. That’s  a  1  in  285,000 … [Read more...] about Why Science says your Lovelife Sucks: 285,000 to 1