Bring on the Stars!

I've joined SETI@home. As I type, my computer is crunching data from a radio telescope. My tired old Pentuim 4 might find the first evidence of intelligent alien life! As an SF fan, how could I resist? If you're interested, here's the link. Please consider donating at least some processor cycles. Understanding what's Out There may lead to better understanding of ourselves.

Some good

It's not a whole hell of a lot, but they evidently were able to get some data off a hard drive that melted when Columbia re-entered. From the article:

During Columbia's fateful mission, the drive had been used to store data from a scientific experiment on the properties of liquid xenon.

Most of the information was radioed to Earth during Columbia's voyage. Edwards was able to recover the remainder, allowing researchers to publish the experiment in the April issue of a science journal, Physical Review E.

At least they got something concrete. Out of tragedy...