SETI@Home Faces Funding Problems

blamanj writes "The aussie version of ZDNET is reporting that money to continue the SETI@Home project is in jeopardy, and it may fall by the wayside unless further funding can be found."

Comments

Question.

[3-State Bit]

Protein folding distributed analysis by IBM...folded. I heard something about cycles for cancer, but I can't find a link.

RIGHT NOW, what can I use my spare cycles for, besides SETI?

Re:Question.

[CLinCH]

You can participate in Folding@Home, which uses cycles to study protein folding, misfolding, aggregation, and related diseases. It's run by a Stanford profesor.

Re:Question.

[Zathrus]

The cancer project is being run through United Devices. This is a non-profit project and the data being generated will not be sold to a for-profit firm.

There's also Folding@Home which researches protein folding as well - although instead of only for cancer research it's generally for other medical research such as Alzheimer's, MS, etc. - also non-profit.

There's Genome@Home which analyzes the genome for medical purposes. Non-profit.

And, finally, if you're looking for a generic listing of distributed computing projects, check here.

Primenet/GIMPS.

[Tom7]

Primenet/GIMPS.

http://www.entropia.com/ips/

They search for very large mersenne primes.

Unlike distributed.net, they're computing something new (distributed.net searches for decryption keys to a message whose contents is known!), and unlike SETI@home, they've had actual results: three of the largest prime numbers known to man were found through Primenet.

Other Distributed Computing Projects

[EngMedic]

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but United Devices has a distributed computing project up that helps find a cure for cancer. Phase II, which began late last summer, is called LIGANDFIT, and 'helps scientists to characterize therapeutic targets and identify and assess drug canididates by performing automated docking of flexible ligands to a protien's binding site.' I'd encourage anyone who has a box with cycles to spare to check it out- i'm pretty sure they've got a linux client, as well as a windows one. I've been running it for 80+ days now, and i haven't noticed any problems with performance- and it's the least we can do for the public good.

SETI@home donation page

[Havokmon]

... which you would think an editor would include, IF SETI@home NEEDS MONEY, but I guess he was too worried about submitting the story before me, dammit.

Of course I was denied 2 hours ago.. how long could that story have existed? Maybe I took too long by ACTUALLY READING IT :P

Re:Distributed Funding

[BrianWCarver]

They already have a system for accepting donations.

Go here to donate by credit card or mail.

They also provide a chart of their donations over the last year here.

BWCarver -- 1301 work units and counting...

Let's stop talking and start donating!!!

[CokoBWare]

If we feel this is a good cause towards humanity's future, let's not sit on our hands, and consider donating to this worthy cause!

Here's the URL... I hope many of your readers use it:

• Donate to SETI@Home

PS: I do not work for SETI@Home. I just think the Internet could work in it's favour if we all shelled out $5+ a piece

Whoa whoa whoa - we are NOT in a funding crisis

[Lebofsky]

This article is really giving us a headache. Quotes taken out of context or points exaggerated, etc.

Basically, we're always in a funding crisis. I personally spend a huge chunk of my time here at the SETI lab writing grant proposals. That's what academia is all about. I've been working in this group for 6 years now, and we've always been just scraping by. This is NOT NEWS.

In fact, we're pushing forward on all fronts. Please see:

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/setifuture.html

- Matt Lebofsky - SETI@home

SETI@Home does science too...

[1fitz2many]

Sure, finding a signal from ET is a longshot. But the project is also useful for real science in astrophysics.

The large computational power available is unique and makes it extremely useful for finding many kinds of time-variable radio sources (not just ET). The project is also being used to map the Hydrogen in the galaxy as detailed here.

Even though getting signals from an extraterrestrial intelligence may be a pipe dream, the project still has value from a pure scientific standpoint.

The official word from SETI@home

[SETIGuy]

The situation isn't as dire as it sounds. Our dominant problem has been that the falling economy has caused some of our sponsors to withdraw support. With support withdrawn, we are denied matching funds from the University. Essentially, the University is witholding funding until we find further sponsors. We are actively seeking corporate sponsors who would be willing to donate, and have their contributions matched by the University. Under the matching program the sponsors must be for-profit industry. If anyone reading this works for such a corporation, please contact SETI@home through our web site.

Individuals wishing to make a contribution can do so through the SETI@home web site. Please be aware that our current largest sponsor is the Planetary Society. A membership to the Planetary Society (assuming it is done through the links on the SETI@home page) may return more to SETI@home than does a direct contribution, as it indicates the importance of SETI@home to members of the Society.

Regardless of the funding issues, we are working hard to make SETI@home II a reality. We have funding from the NSF to develop the BOINC client/server code which will be used as the framework for SETI@home II. We are in the process of building the SETI@home II data recorder. What we do with it (multibeam, wide bandwidth) and where (Arecibo or Parkes) depends upon what we can afford.

We are also seeking NSF funding for AstroPulse and SETHI and SERENDIP V.

That said, things are currently somewhat tight here. We'll need to make do with fewer employees until we're back in the black. I don't think this spells the end of SETI@home by any means.