What's it like to be an Octopus? (2017)
It's an old trope in Sci Fi that alien intelligences would be so different from us that we couldn't even begin to comprehend them.  Octopuses belie that idea... although we share some DNA, our last common ancestors barely had a nervous system, so any similarities in cognition between us really are the product of paralllel evolution.  And since their environments are also very different from ours, this parallel evoution clearly hints that there is something universal in this consciousness we share, something that seems to want to evolve to similar parameters given half a chance.<p>We don't know how common or rare sentience and consciousness are in the Universe, but because of the Octopus I believe that if ever we do encounter non-terrestrial sentience we'll have no trouble recognizing it and will find that we have enough in common to establish communications and a relationship.  Although first we'd do well to do a better job at communicating with and respecting the many non-human sentient beings on <i>this</i> planet.