Are you doing your part to find strange, evolved life forms in unexplored places? ... I mean besides cleaning out the back of the fridge. I am in fact talking about Outer Space.

You can help search the universe for other intelligent life forms without leaving your chair, thanks to a program called SETI@home. (SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.) SETI@home is an eight-year-old project that takes advantage of ordinary users' spare computer power to analyze telescope data for unusual signals.

Here's how the program works. You go to the project's Web site ( http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ .) You download and install some software they provide onto your computer. After that, when your computer is idle, the SETI@home software will use its spare processing power to analyze small bits of telescope signal data, looking for some evidence of extraterrestrial intelligent creatures -- or at least their communications. For the last eight years, hundreds of thousands of computers have been involved in the massive task of analyzing this data.

Right; the last eight years. So why am I bringing this to your attention now? Because SETI@home needs even MORE volunteers! New and more sensitive telescope receivers are generating 300 gigabytes of information per day, or 100 terabytes a year. All this data means more powerful searching and more chances to find Someone Out There -- but more computing power is needed!

If you'd like to take part in SETI@home, visit the URL above. You may join as an individual, create a team, or join a team -- as you can see, there are already at least a couple of teams affiliated with Raleigh NC!