i think about them quite often!! i'm a physics/astronomy major and the drake equation is pretty much my roman empire (for those unfamiliar, it takes a bunch of factors into account to calculate the probability of extraterrestrial life) especially after recently having watched the 3-body-problem, it's returned to the forefront of my mind. i believe very strongly that there is SOME form of life out there. maybe not necessarily as intellectually and biologically advanced as we are, but with the amount of habitable environments i think there's a good chance there's unicellular life at least!
if you could devote your life (and money/time wasn't an issue) to studying/researching one specific thing, what would it be?