Paraphrasing: "In this paper, we reiterate previous assertions about how utterly boned we are as a species in the event that a nearby star has gone supernova in the last few hundred years."

There is also something about galactic habitable zones that is interesting: maybe the Fermi paradox is explained by alien civilization only appearing in galactic fringes, and therefore spread well apart.

Seems like we live inside a self-cleaning oven.

I only read the abstract and conclusions so maybe this is covered in the paper - but based on some reasonable estimates of the damage done to organic matter by these x-ray bursts (and similar events) and of the time taken for life to evolve, I assume we could significantly improve on the Drake equation by updating terms which represent "probability of not being scoured from existence".

More abstracts like this, please. :D

I didn't read the paper but are there any stars within 150 lights of earth that are supernova candidates?

"... lethal consequences up to ∼50 pc away ..."

Obligatory xkcd What If reference: https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/

The quote from that that blew my tiny human mind was:

Which of the following would be brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina:

    1. A supernova, seen from as far away as the Sun is from the Earth, or

    2. The detonation of a hydrogen bomb pressed against your eyeball?

Applying the physicist rule of thumb suggests that the supernova is brighter. And indeed, it is... by nine orders of magnitude.