Recent measurements have shown a significant rise in the temperature by precisely 0.042°K, a measurement which indirectly implies the existence of minute bacterial activity, possibly surrounding or living off the dark matter which makes up most of the Universe's mass.
These measurements have been further refined by a link-up between Radio Telescopes at the Bogong High Plains Observatory in Victoria and the radio telescope at Schlöss Rattshärz, Bavaria, the results of which are being analysed at the University of Bürgerweldt.
These two telescopes have combined to make a radiometric interferometer of unprecedented size and sensitivity and have produced data consistent with a finding that most of the missing mass of the Universe is made up by bacterial and other semi-cold plasma life forms in the voids between the stars and galaxies.
Evidence for extra-terrestrial bacteria has been amassed in recent years following on the discovery of extremeophiles in boiling springs in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA, and around "black smokers" - deep under-sea volcanic vents where no sunlight penetrates and where bacteria must live on sulphur and other minerals extracted from near-boiling water.
Complex hydrocarbons have been identified in interstellar gas clouds and, as with the famous "black smokers", it may well be that close enough proximity to the warmth of adjacent stars could well have sparked the development of single-celled bacterial organisms which have evolved into more complex forms over many millennia.
Baron Beavis Von Buttköpf theorises that sophisticated extra-terrestrial life forms may be dramatically different from anything our planet has to offer.
He envisages some gaseous or cold plasma version of stromatolites, perhaps many kilometres or scores of kilometres in diameter in which a multi-celled life form functions as a kind of organic, semi-plasma computer and perhaps connected and internally communicating by way of static electricity.
Not reflecting any significant amount of light, these clouds could be staggering in both size and numbers and could fill much of the void between the stars, with that energy collected by parts of the clouds near to a star being relayed to the more distant parts of the clouds in a kind of organic growth.
Whether such life forms could acquire intelligence is as yet unknown, but there is a real prospect that an extensive gas cloud could develop what currently passes for artificial intelligence in computers, and if capable of communicating between each other, thereby develop intelligent responses and perhaps sentience.
This could indicate a desirable line of inquiry for operation SETI, in that any attempt to communicate with ET should be in computer binary language, as our carbon-based life forms could well be in the minority throughout the Universe and we will discover that "computers rule".