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The SETI@home project, which allows anyone with a reasonably powerful home
computer to join in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, will be
launched on 16 May. Signal-processing software disguised as a screensaver,
written by Dan Wertheimer of the University of California, Berkeley, takes data
captured by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, and scours it for
promising signals. Wertheimer puts the chances of hitting the jackpot of an
alien contact at around 100 million to one—but it could be you. For more
information, see www.setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu. You will need either a Mac
or a PC with at least 32 megabytes RAM running at least Windows 95.