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There’s a fresh eye on the lookout for extraterrestrial intelligence. The
University of California’s Lick Observatory has fitted a detector to one of its
optical telescopes to scan the skies for laser pulses beamed our way by alien
civilisations. Optical SETI searches have been attempted before but were prone
to crying wolf. Cosmic rays or radioactive decays inside a detector can look
like a signal, says Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute in Mountain View,
California. The new detector uses three independent light sensors, so
researchers can be sure ET is calling when they get a telltale signal in all
three.