Extraterrestrial volunteers

More than two million people have agreed to help with the search for
extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) by using a screen saver on their computers
to sift data from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. SETI astronomers
initially thought the distributed computing project, called SETI@home, would
attract about 100 000 volunteers
(New Scientist, 25 July 1998, p 46).
“It’s been overwhelming,” says Charlene Anderson of the Planetary Society in
Pasadena, California, one of the project’s sponsors. Every day 2000 new
volunteers sign up.