From Itzhak Shechtman:

Re: Death from across the galaxy (Feb. 27): I draw your attention to my paper “Is the universe teeming with super civilizations? which appeared in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 59, No. 7, July 2006, pp. 257-261. As its title suggests, it deals with the effects very strong stellar (as well as terrestrial) cataclysms - including GRB’s - can have on life in the universe, and arrives at the optimistic conclusion that the universe is probably teeming with super civilizations.

Itzhak Shechtman
Nesher, Israel