SETI: an acronym for "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence." It is a concerted effort to detect evidence of technological civilizations that may exist elsewhere in the universe, particularly in our own Milky Way galaxy.

There are potentially billions of locations outside our solar system that may host life. With our current technology, we have the ability to discover evidence of cosmic habitation where life has evolved and developed to a technological level at least as advanced as our own.

The majority of this work is conducted by the SETI Institute, a non-profit corporation [www.seti.org]. The Institute captures radio telescope data from space and analyzes it in real-time, on their own computers. They search this data for what are called "narrow-band signals," which would indicate a purposely-built transmitter.

While SETI@home is not part of the research program of the SETI Institute, it is a project that the Institute fully endorses. Data is collected with the Arecibo Radio Telescope, in Puerto Rico, and ultimately analyzed by thousands of Internet-connected PCs, such as your own. Hence the name, "SETI at home." The program is administered by the Radio Astronomy Laboratory at U.C. Berkeley.

All you need to participate in the SETI@home project is Internet access and a program called BOINC -- Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. (Versions exist for the Windows, Linux/x86, Mac OS x, and Solaris/SPARC operating systems.) BOINC takes advantage of idle, unused CPU time; it is typically run as a screensaver, and administers all required functions -- downloading, processing, uploading, etc. BOINC does not contend with you for your computer's resources!

Credits are awarded in recognition of SETI@home processing contributions. And individuals can join a team, and the team's score is the sum of its members' credits. A team named "tribe.net's SETI@home tribe" has been established. And given the number of tribe.net members, if we can tap that resource we'll be able to accumulate an impressive team score (and maybe help find ET in the process!).

Please visit <setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/create_account_form.php?teamid=114944> to open an account and join tribe.net's team. You can then download the BOINC software by visiting <setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu>. (Live links can be found in the message titled "SETI@home Links".)

NOTE: SETI has its detractors, who feel it's a waste of time and resources to look for intelligent life beyond Earth. Some believe that of the billions of billions of star systems, Earth is the only place in the entire universe that has life. Others believe that, while intelligent life probably exists, we're not going to find it. One thing is for certain: if we look we may discover a signal, whereas if we don't, we definitely won't!

http://SETIatHome.tribe.net