Briefs

SETI@home, the grid computing effort that recruits home users to help search for signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life, will be upgraded with new software and switch to a telescope that can scan a greater area of sky.

The first software release will be the online AstroPulse program, which will analyze three years' worth of data compiled from the Arecibo radio telescope for signs of broadband signals; such signals are theoretically emitted from the evaporation of quantum black holes, according to David Anderson, the project director of SETI@home at the University of California, Berkeley.

Concurrent with the release of AstroPulse will be the introduction of Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Networking Computing (BOINC), a software layer that parcels out the various parts of the SETI@home program, allowing changes to be implemented without interrupting the screensaver that harnesses the idle processing power of home computers, or asking users to download upgrades. Anderson says that BOINC will significantly reduce the installation cycle for new SETI@home versions, which used to take as long as a year. Furthermore, BOINC users will be able to smoothly integrate SETI@home with other computing projects, such as the Folding@home protein folding simulation program. Processing power can also be divvied up between projects with the program. Meanwhile, SETI@home will transition from Puerto Rico's Arecibo telescope to Australia's Park Observatory telescope, which has 40 degrees more scanning range as well as a multibeam receiver, which records data from multiple points in the sky, making it easier to distinguish between transmissions from outer space and those that originate on Earth.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/seti_021001.html