SETI@Home 2nd Look at Possible Hits

cpk0 writes "This article from MSNBC discusses how data returned from SETI@Home users is beign retested by the Institue for a possibility of alien radio signals being included. At just over 4 years old, I think this would be the first big break for SETI@home." This is a followup to a December Slashdot story. Apparently this is getting some major attention in the mainstream media lately.

Re:Issue

[k3v0]

i believe that the powers running SETI@home send out redundant data and compare, so as to reflect a more accurate statistic

Re:What a waste

[adpowers]

Idle cycles that could go to other better projects [mersenne.org].

Space.com article

[lucretio]

There is also an article here [space.com].

Re:Hack

[sethaw]

Thats why they send every packet to multiple people to verify the results. Conflicting results should appear and the scientists can execute tests on that data. However, even if there are positive results this doesn't mean anything is found. This is why we have to go back and look for signals where they were found in the past, because there is justified skepticism in any result that says "we found aliens."

More details

[Drog]

Just posted the same story [scifitoday.com] at SFT, with more details and different links.

Re:could be just what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the 80s series had a few of nice 5 minute ones like that.

"A Small Talent for War"
http://www.thetzsite.com/pages/tz1985/index. html

I also liked "I of Newton"

Re:What a waste

[LMCBoy]

You are correct, time on large radio telescopes is a precious resource. The decision of who gets to use a telescope is almost always left to a panel of experts called a Time Allocation Committee (TAC). Astronomers write proposals to use the telescope, and the TAC weighs them by scientific merit, awarding time to the best of the proposed projects.

So, apparently the TAC at Arecibo also thinks that a few nights for SETI are resources well spent.

Re:Or even better..

[oni]

But to say that everybody's going to die anyway, so why bother is the most absurd thing I've ever heard.

Fortunately, you did not hear it in the comment you replied to. He didn't say "so why bother" and he didn't imply that medicine was worthless - just that in the larger scheme of things it's futile.

His comment was more about the relative importance of healing one individual human vs. contacting an alien race.

Re:Even REAL PROOF would be dismissed...

[ReverendRyan]

In reference to the movie, notice how Dr. Airoway (spelling?) has a unique, life changing experience, with no evidence to back it up.

In the book (not in the movie) there is plenty of evidence that everything she claimed actualy happened, but it is covered up by buerocracy. Even in the movie there was *some* evidence (the 18 hours of recorded static).