Werthimer will discuss the possibility of life in the universe and the search for radio signals from other civilizations. SETI@home analyzes Arecibo data using desktop computers from five million volunteers in 226 countries. SETI@home participants have contributed two million years of computer time and have formed Earth's most powerful supercomputer. Users have the small but captivating possibility their computer will detect the first signal from a civilization beyond Earth.

Werthimer will also discuss current and future optical, IR, and radio SETI experiments and open source code for public participation distributed computing.